Little Lion Man
by paramorebrighter
Summary: The moment your child disappears, it's a mother's worst nightmare. Sequel to Alexis, Unexpected.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer- I still don't own Castle, Andrew Marlowe does, and I don't want him to sue me for playing in his sandbox. I'm just having fun, I make no moneys._

_I swore I'd respond to everybody who reviewed _Alexis, Unexpected_. I think I got to everybody except AlexBeckett. Sorry babe, you have messaging disabled, I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate your reviews, though, so you're getting some love here! Sorry it took me so long, everybody!_

_As always, I don't have a beta, I'd love to find one, but I do not want to get involved in fandom BS that sometimes happens, so please excuse my typos, I always see them after I hit "send" or "publish." Shit._

* * *

I had no idea that Lily would grow so fast. Dad wasn't kidding when he told me that. In the blink of an eye, she turned a year old, and I was almost done with my bachelor's degree. I had changed my major from pre-law to social work; I wanted to be like Chandra and Erin, and help others navigate life. I was planning on going to get my LCSW degree after I got my bachelor's. When I quit being perfect, I discovered the room for passions and the things that made me feel fulfilled.

Lilly was growing and calling me _Mama_, and a few weeks later, "_ganPA_!" and "_nannEEE_!" and "_gans!_" Her smiled melted our hearts. Dad loved her fiercely; and made sure she had a host of t-shirts and onesies in her wardrobe that said something to that effect. He spoiled her rotten. Lily took her first unsteady steps and walked across the living room floor and into my arms after countless falls on her diapered butt by the end of the summer and Dad caught it on his cell phone's camera. I missed holding her in my arms like a baby. My heart broke when she was able to walk; she didn't want me, or anyone else, to carry her anymore and threw a fit anytime I tried to pick her up.

My heart broke for Kate too; she and Dad returned from their honeymoon, and she was not pregnant, yet. She told me that they were still trying. The months went by and every month, I watched her light die just a little bit when it came out that she wasn't pregant, yet. After Lily's first birthday party, while she was destroying a smash cake gleefully and adorably, Kate told me that she and Dad were going to go to a fertility specialist. Then, Kate's worst fears about her own body came true in the next few months; they told her that she was the one with reproductive problems, not Dad. She had a slight flare of endometriosis, and that was making her uterus an "unfriendly" environment. She had probably lost every conception she had had so far. They decided to try In Vitro Fertilization, then they'd move onto to something else, but warned her that it might still happen naturally and spontaneously. The night of Lily's second birthday after I gave her a bath and put her to bed, I found Kate out on the roof of our building, smoking a stale cigarette.

"I haven't smoked in years," she admitted. "I just can't take it. I'm going to be on hormones and they're going to harvest my eggs and…" She exhaled a lung full of smoke. "God, I just can't believe we're going to be going so far and into something so unnatural to have a baby. I keep asking myself if we can just be happy together with Lily as our granddaughter and you coming by, but… a part of me still wonders. Richard could go either way, but the more I think about having a baby, the more I want one."

"Don't stress," I said softly, stroking her arm. I sat down beside her and rested my head on her shoulder. "What was you guys were always telling me when I got pregnant? 'These things just happen?'"

She took another drag off her cigarette. "I know. I'm just so… I'm scared." She sounded shaky. "I spent all these years trying to _not_ get pregnant, and now that I'm ready to get pregnant, I can't. It just seems so unfair. I want this. And we'd be amazing parents, too, you know? So many poor people can't stop having babies, and they struggle, but love them and are good parents to them. We have all the money in the world and we'd be there and be great parents, too, but we can't conceive. Because I jinxed it!" She stabbed out the cigarette and flipped the butt across the roof.

"It's just not meant to be just yet," I said, squeezing her hand. "Look, what if Lily and I got our own place and gave you and Dad some room?"

"You can't possibly mean-"

"Yes, I can. I'm starting the master's program at NYU next fall and we're taking up all your spare room in the loft. I'm sure that's not adding to your ability to conceive. Lily doesn't understand privacy, yet anyway. So, we'll make plans to move out."

Kate looked crestfallen. "But I love having Lily around so much!"

"I'll make sure I bring her over for you to baby sit at least two nights a week while I'm in school. Oh, I'll be generous and let you do it three times a week, sounds fair?"

Kate finally cracked a smile. "It does," she said.

* * *

Dad agreed to buy an apartment for Lily and I to live in. We set out a budget and called the real estate to start shopping. Buying an apartment was much more difficult than I thought; finding a two bedroom we could afford was not easy. New York real estate was expensive, and the budget didn't fit much, mostly apartments in Queens and Brooklyn. I didn't want to be so far away from my family, but I wanted a place of my own.

By the time I started at NYU on my master's in social work in August of the next year after Lily turned two, I had all but given up on ever living in Manhattan. It looked like Brooklyn was going to be our home. Something just didn't fit, though.

Lily and I went to visit Grams in her apartment building in the West Villiage. Lily loved seeing Grams, and I felt guilty about how I hadn't found a place and Kate still hadn't had her baby, yet.

"If we live in Brooklyn, I'll have to bring Lily across the river every day for day care with Dad," I said. "That just seems like such a waste of subway credits. And I can't afford to send her to a day care in Brooklyn."

"You know your father would see to that," Grams said. "He wouldn't let Lily suffer."

"He wouldn't," I agreed. "But I love that she has so much special time with her grandfather. Just the two of them."

"I know you do," Grams said. "I had this same conundrum with Richard. He was a latchkey kid for a while as a tween, between babysitters."

Lily entertained herself with some of the toys Grams kept for her at her house.

"Well, I promised Dad I'd be home in time for dinner," I said. "Come on, Lily Bean, we need to get going. Grams, you're coming, right?"

"Of course, let me just put on some lipstick and I'll meet you downstairs."

Lily dawdled a little bit as I put her shoes back on her, but we took the elevator down. In the lobby, a man and woman were standing together, talking as I checked my text messages. Lily was great friends with the doorman Tony, and she told him all about her day so far.

"...It was so small, does that even count as a second bedroom? There weren't even appliances in there," the woman said.

"No, I don't think that really counted as a second bedroom because it didn't have a closet, that practically _was_ a closet!" the man said.

"How would we ever have company overnight?" the woman said.

"Excuse me," I said, sitting up. "Is there an apartment for sale in this building? A two-bedroom?"

"Oh, actually, there is," the woman said, her upper lip curling. "It's on the eighth floor. It was a foreclosure, that's why all the appliances were missing. Awful."

"Thank you!" I cried, picking up Lily. "Lily Bean, tell Tony we're going to check out the apartment on the eighth floor! Tell my Grams!"

"Bye, Ton-eeee!" Lily said.

"Bye, Lily!" Tony shouted.

I pressed the elevator and it opened with Grams in it. "There's an apartment for sale. It's on the eighth floor and I want to see it," I said.

"There's an empty one in this building?"

"Yeah! Come on!"

We didn't have to search up and down the halls, there were signs pointing to it and there was a real estate agent closing it up.

"Hi!" I cried. "Hi, my name's Alexis Castle and I'd like to see this apartment, please? If you have a moment."

"Of course! I'm so glad you're interested! I was about to lock up."

"This is my grandmother, Martha Rogers, and this is my daughter, Lily. We just want a look."

She opened the door and flipped the lights on.

The apartment had obviously been professionally cleaned, but the kitchen sported no appliances except the kitchen sink. We walked through, and it felt a little drafty, but there was a fireplace in the living room with a gas log fireplace for the heating element. The main bedroom was big for Manhattan standards, but the little second bedroom could have passed for a large closet.

"This i'my room!" Lily cried, as we walked into the tiny closet of a room.

"Yeah, I think this room is Lily-sized," I agreed.

The bathroom was on the other side of the second bedroom and had a door that went into the kitchen. The kitchen and the bathroom were lined in white tiles with 1930's inspired oyster-style tiles on the floor in white. It probably was that old, this was a pre-war building. The bathtub was a large, porcelain claw-foot tub that had been taken care of and a matching, old-fashioned toilet, and stand-alone sink. I guessed the old owners never got around to selling those things off for the mortgage. It didn't have any bathroom lighting fixtures, just a bare lightbulb hanging from a cord, but I didn't care; that was a quick fix, Dad probably had an old light fixture in storage we could use.

"Oh, would you look at this?" Grams asked. "How do you even get a tub this large in Manhattan without paying a million dollars for an apartment?"

"How much is the asking price?" I asked.

"Well, if I told you… you wouldn't believe it," she said.

"How much?" I asked, hoping it met the budget Dad had set aside for our own place.

She wrote something down on a piece of paper and showed it to me.

It was within $5000 of the budget.

_Yes._

"There's no negotiation," she said. "You're dealing with the bank on this one, and they just want to recoup their losses from the foreclosure. That's the price they're going to accept for it, take it or leave it."

"Can I have your card?" I asked. "I'm going to bring my parents by sometime and see what they think of it. Are there any offers on it?"

"No, actually, not at the moment," she got out her card for me.

"Thank you!" I cried. "Thank you for taking the time to show us! We've got to get going!"

Grams, Lily, and I were ecstatic about the apartment when we burst into the loft. Lily was screaming, and once I got her stop, I explained, excitedly. "If it's just us, it's perfect!" I cried. "It's within our price range, Lily and I wouldn't have to share a room, and it's just big enough for us to grow into in the next few years!"

"We'll get a boudoir for your clothes and I think Lily's bed would fit in the second bedroom, but it is!" Grams agreed. "And it's in Manhattan, what luck!"

"It's perfect for Lily and me!" I said. "It really is!"

"I want to see it," Dad said. "But no promises."

"You'll love it!" I said.

Two days later, the real estate agent met us and as Dad walked around the apartment, I waited for his response to it. "I think Lily will out-grow that room by the time she's ten," he said.

"But we could rent it out and I'd get my own place by then," I begged. "I'll be a LCSW in a few years! I'll be out and on my own, I might even get a job outside of New York."

"There's no appliances, we'd have to buy them all. But it's in Manhattan!"

"Yeah!" I cried. "And I'm only like two subway stops away from your apartment! And only like five from NYU!"

"I love the idea of Alexis and Lily living so close by," Kate added. "All the other apartments we could get were in Brooklyn. She can just drop Lily off on her way to school! She'd have to put Lily in day care if she moved to Brooklyn."

"Please, Dad?" I begged.

"Peeeeaaase Ganpa?" Lily begged, too. I picked her up.

"_Peeeeasse_?" we chorused together.

"You can't say no to either of these faces," I reminded him.

"Alright, we can interview with the tennant's association," he said.

* * *

By October, we were raking through Dad's things in storage, picking out furniture, area rugs, glasses and plates, and moving things into my own apartment. He had some lighting fixtures installed in the kitchen and bathrooms and the walls painted, and it was looking livable.

"This is the way it should have been done," I admitted as we put post-it notes on the things we wanted the movers to take out. "Back my sophomore year of college."

"I would have bought you an apartment if you asked me," Dad said. "For you to live in alone, without…_ Pi_." Dad still snarled his name, unintentionally. He was still pretty pissed off at Pi. He and Kate even stopped using his name to describe pies and the mathematical term. "Why couldn't you have moved in with a friend?"

"What is it you always say? Perfect hindsight is always 20/20?" I asked.

"You got me there," he admitted.

Our apartment was set up and the appliances arrived later that day. Lily and I were ready to live on our own.

"What do we do first?" I asked Lily when Grams, Tara, Ellen, Kate, and Dad left and the place was set up. "Let's do something Grandpa and Nanny wouldn't let us do! This is OUR place!"

"Jump on 'da bed!" Lily cried.

"Yeah!" I cried, although I didn't want her jumping by herself. I took her hands and bounced her on the bed. It was good to have our own place.

* * *

The day before Halloween, my office had a trick-or-treating event for the Boys and Girl's Club and for the people who had kids and wanted to bring them around. I wore a white dress with angel wings and gave out candy to the kids that came by. I heard Lily's voice over the commotion.

"...and I tell him, this is the place we play," she was saying.

"Lily, is that you?" I called, getting up from my desk. "Lily, did you come to see me at work?"

Dad was escorting Lily into my office, and she was in a bumblebee costume for Halloween. Dad was wearing a tweed suit and a bow tie and red fez.

"Yeah, I thought I'd show her off," he said.

"You look so good!, Lily!" I said. "Really busy like a bumblebee should!"

"I am!" Lily said, holding up her plastic jack-o'lantern. "I get candy!"

"What are you supposed to be, Dad?" I asked.

Dad looked insulted. "The Eleventh Doctor. Matt Smith?"

"Is Kate going to be Amy or Clara?"

"Neither. She's going as Holly Golightly."

We took Lily around and introduced her. She racked up, but I caught Dad stealing a few pieces out of her bag. In the English Department, more than a few of the professors recognized Dad. He introduced me and explained I wrote a blog that had a large following. "You know, it's internet blogs that have the best opportunity for exposure these days," the professor told me. "I've seen your blog. Quite well-done, but I only read a few blogs. Is it just about being a mother?"

"It's more about how I had a child on my own while going to Columbia. I just graduated from there a few weeks ago."

"And you're here, now?"

"Yes, I didn't want to leave my family," I admitted.

We talked for a few more minutes and I realized Lily wasn't in sight.

"Lily?" I asked. "Excuse me, my daughter's missing. Lily!"

"Mommy!" her little soprano rang out across the maze of cubicles.

"I got her!" a man's voice said. He stood up and he held Lily up and she was grinning. I dashed to the cube to retrieve her.

"Lily, you scared me!" I cried, picking her up. "What were you doing?"

"Toys!" she said gleefully, holding one up.

"Yeah," the man said, giving a half-smile. I had to admit he was cute, though, his scruff of a beard against his mop of unruly black hair. Oh wait. He kind of looked like Pi. "I didn't have any more candy, sorry. A scary vampire cleaned me out." He had a Southern accent and friendly, warm blue eyes. "She came around saying, 'trick or treat' and I couldn't let her go without something."

I noticed a few military plaquards and pictures around his cubicle. He had an American Flag folded in a triangle on a shelf over his desktop. "Ben Haversham."

"It's nice to meet you, but Lily, haven't we talked about going off without Mommy or Grandpa or Nanny?" I asked her.

Lily bowed her head, but smirked. Stinker.

"We introduced ourselves," he said.

She still had a little plastic action figure in her hand, which I wrung out, but she started to cry. "Here," I said. "I didn't mean for her to bother you."

"Nah, it's alright," he said. "She can keep it."

"Thanks."

"You know, she looks just like you."

"I get that a lot. I think it's just the red hair. Again, sorry to bother you!"

"You didn't, Alexis."

I had turned to leave, but I stopped in my tracks. "How do you know my name?"

"Your blog," he said quickly. "You're kind of famous around this department for it."

I realized I was being rude, but Lily was wriggling in my arms. She wanted to be put down, so I did, but held onto her right hand with my left one so she didn't run off. "Hi, it's nice to meet you," I said, sticking my hand out. "I didn't catch your name, I'm sorry."

He stook my hand. "Ben Haversham. I'm a MFA student."

"Oh," I said, nodding. "I'll see you around the office, I'm sure."

"You and Lily have a good Halloween, alright?"

"We will." I guided Lily back to where Dad was waiting.

* * *

_A/N- I don't know if you've ever lost a child, but it's a heart-pounding moment. Trust me, Alexis will experience this again in this story, at least once!_


	2. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer- I still don't own Castle, Andrew Marlowe does, and I don't want him to sue me for playing in his sandbox. Sorry, I'm reusing character I created for the _10 Hospitalizations of Alexis Castle_, I'm lazy, but I loved Ben especially._

* * *

On November 1st, my department was lined up at the starting line of the November to Remember 5K starting in Central Park for the 9/11 fund. Ann Hastings-Whittaker and I were running it together, although she was in much better shape than me, and ran 5Ks for breakfast, especially now that she had gotten married to Paul Whittaker last spring in a small ceremony by the Central Park boathouse.

"Don't wait on me," I said. "Really, don't. You'll probably out pace me by the time we're done with the first kilometer."

Kate had dragged me through training, although her joints were getting loose from all the hormones she had been put on and she couldn't run as much with me. Her hip joint on the left kept on popping out from all the hormone treatments. "I'll stick by you," Ann promised.

"Don't. I wouldn't want to slow you down."

My legs were stretched out and I was warmed up. Before I knew it, I heard the gunshot. Ann jumped in place, and the 8:30 group ran forwards.

The first half of a kilometer we got through, I knew I was slowing her down. "Go on," I told her. "Go ahead."

"Alright. See you at the finish line!"

"Bye!" I shouted. She darted off like a gazelle, her blonde curls in her ponytail bobbing.

I slowed down to a quick walking pace and once I saw the 1K sign, I started running again. I wasn't looking where I was going because my ankle suddenly twisted and a terrible streak of pain went up my leg. I shrieked out and collapsed on the pavement. It was mostly deserted portion of the run: there were no race coordinators nearby. My ankle throbbed and I was afraid to move, the pain was so intense.

People started to stop to check on me and ask if I was okay. "I don't know," I wheezed.

"Alexis? Is that you?" a familiar voice asked.

I looked up through the blinding pain and saw Ben Haversham's face peering down at me.

"I didn't know you were running," I wheezed.

"Yeah, I started with the 8:45 group," he said, kneeling down beside me. "Did you fall?"

"My ankle," I gasped.

"Let's see," he said, gently touching my leg under the knee and bringing my foot up. I gasped in pain and surprisingly, a unfamiliar pang of lust traveled up the inside of my leg. "That hurts?"

"Yeah!"

"How far up?"

"My thigh," I admitted. I indicated where I felt the last of the pain on my leg with my hand. "Here."

"It's probably a sprain if you're feeling it that high up. I know this is going to hurt, but just trust me, alright?" he asked, his hand touching my back. Before I could protest, he had an arm around my back and under my knees and lifted me, although I was basically dead weight. It did hurt my injured leg, but I was surprised he was carrying me.

"You can't- can't possibly-" I wheezed, "carry me all tha-this way?"

"No, just to the medic," he said.

"What about your time?"

"Eh, who cares, it's not timed," he said. Despite his sweat, he smelled like pine and dove soap and..._ mmm_, something that made the long-forgotten lust pangs reactivate in my pelvis, distracting me from the shooting pain up my ankle. "Sprains can be worse than clean breaks, you know," he said, carrying me down the street and rounding the corner. There were medics waiting. He carried me to the gurney and set me down and the paramedics rushed to me so I could explain what happened. By now, I had caught my breath. "You're okay?"

"I'll be fine from here," I said.

"Alright, I'm going on now."

"Bye!"

Ben set off to finish the race. He too, ran like a gazelle. I felt like a hippo flopping around when I ran. "So tell me what happened? Where does it hurt?" the medic asked.

"I felt my foot go out from underneath me," I admitted. "I can feel the pain up to my thigh when I move it."

"Probably a sprain, but we need to have an X-ray to be sure. Do you want to call anybody?"

"My parents?" I asked. He handed me a cell phone and I dialed Dad's number.

"Hey sweetheart, where are you?" he asked. "Ann just passed the finish line."

"I sprained my ankle," I admitted.

"When?"

"I just finished the first kilometer. I'm so embarrassed! They're taking me to St. Vincent's for X-rays."

"We'll meet you there," Dad said.

At the ER, I had to wait for a while after going through Triage. Dad, Kate, and Lily met me. Lily flashed the poster she and Dad had created for me to congratulate me on finishing the race. "You win?" Lily asked. "You win, Momma?"

"No, baby, I didn't," I said. "Mommy got hurt."

"Man, I can't believe you didn't get to finish," Kate said. "After all that training."

"I know," I muttered. "I really wanted to."

"Ann was pretty concerned when we told her," Dad said.

"I'll be fine. It was just dumb," I said. "I wasn't watching where I was stepping and I was so far away from the medics."

"How did you get there? Did you walk on it?" Kate asked, alarmed.

"No, I didn't," I said. "This guy from my office carried me."

"A guy _carried_ you?" Kate repeated.

"Are you saying I'm really that fat that I can't be carried?" I asked, slightly offended.

"No, it's just that on the map, that's almost an whole kilometer!" Kate cried. "I can't even carry Lily that far! Who was it?"

"His name is Ben. Nice guy. Lily knows him," I said as Lily climbed/leapt onto the ER gurney beside me from Dad's chair. Lily climbed into my lap adeptly. I settled her in my lap on my good leg.

"I'm inviting him over for Thanksgiving!" she joked.

* * *

I ran into Ben often on the elevators on Monday, limping up with my sprained ankle in a bandage that badly needed to be re-wrapped. "Hi," I said.

"Hey, how's the ankle?"

"A lot better, but still pretty crappy," I admitted. "It was just a sprain."

"Any idea on the damage, yet?"

I shook my head. "I can afford PT," I said. "Hey, thanks for carrying me to the medic tent."

"No problem."

The elevator was stalling on the 8th floor.

"Would you like to come to my parents house with me for Thanksgiving?" I offered. "You don't seem to be from around and here and um..." My voice trailed off.

"No, actually. I have other plans. Prior commitments."

_Well, that went well._

We stood there awkwardly, and I thought for a moment he was staring at my boobs. "I grew up on _Doctor. Who_. Every time I saw my dad, we'd watch that," he said. "I just noticed your TARDIS charm on your necklace. It's hard to decide who's my favorite of all of them."

"It is," I agreed. I had secretly crushed on Matt Smith and David Tennant in high school, but Dad and I had seen all the episodes from the original series that hadn't been lost in an epic marathon a few times.

"I'd have to settle on Tom Baker," he said.

My ears perked up. He knew about the fourth Doctor? From the original series? "You've seen the classic episodes?"

"Of course!" he scoffed. "Maybe I sound like a snob, but you're not really a Whovian if you haven't seen _some_ of the old episodes."

My heart melted. "Yeah! You're right! Aren't we snobs, huh?"

"Yeah," he chuckled. "I can't go to Thanksgiving with your family, but do you want to go out with my department? You know, for some beers? We're trying to find good local spots here in the city. Like maybe this weekend?"

For a moment, I was flattered, but then reality struck. "I'd really like to, just check back with me. I don't think I can this weekend, I can't find a babysitter. Short notice."

"Oh, that's right."

"Yeah, I've got a kid. My parents help out as much as they can, but going out for fun instead of school is kind of taking advantage of their freetime."

"Baby-sitters are expensive," he admitted.

"Sorry. Just let me know like a week in advance, and I'll get back to you."

The elevator dinged, and it opened with people inside.

Yes, he was cute, but I didn't had any idea how I was going to have a relationship when I had Lily to worry about. Finding time to date was almost impossible because most of the time, it was really spontaneous, and you couldn't break plans with Lily. It was only a reminder of how unintentionally selfish single life was and how hard it was to be a parent, especially a single parent. I never got around to going out with them, or my own graduate class in the social work department, that semester. Most everyone in my department was married or had kids, too.

When the semester was finally over and the office Christmas Party was scheduled, I almost said no. But the idea of having an adult conversation with people who weren't my parents' friends excited me. Dad insisted I go to it, he'd watch Lily that night so I could be a part of the department and socialize, which I rarely did anymore. True, I did have a few parties I had arranged to go to with Tara and Nina before Christmas, but that took a lot of planning on my part and Dad's. The Hanukkah Party at Ellen's Hirsch's was child-friendly, luckily. Ellen was like a favorite great-aunt/wannabe grandmother to Lily. Babysitters weren't abundant this time of year, at least ones I trusted with my child. Rina was my favorite, but I couldn't always afford her rates.

* * *

I arrived with a gallon-sized ziplock baggie of M&M cookies Lily and I had baked ourselves. Unfortunately, NYU didn't allow for alcohol in the offices, so there was nothing to drink except bottled water, sodas, and punch. We mostly just walked around and ate Christmas food and drank punch while chatting, which got boring quickly. Conversation got boring really fast when I reminded myself that not everybody wanted to hear about Lily and see her Christmas pictures.

"This kind of sucks, doesn't it?" someone asked behind me.

I turned around and saw Ben and his friends from the MFA department with him. He had stepped away from them momentarily. "Yeah," I agreed, feeling a smile cross my face. I didn't mind Ben noticing me. "I didn't know how boring I was becoming until I just tried to show four people in a row Lily's Christmas pictures."

"I think we're going to get out of here," he said. "We're going to the McLeod's for a few beers. Wanna go?"

My usual _no_ almost came out of my mouth, but I had told Grams I'd be out until at least eleven, and then I realized he meant the Old Haunt, which Dad had bought a few years back, but sold investors shares in so he didn't lose a lot of money if it failed. He had sold a share to one of the best bar owners in the world, who had taken over and was now raking in the profits. It had been renamed McLeod's and I rarely had an excuse to go. I didn't get to drink very often since I had had Lily at nineteen and breast fed so much that I didn't really get a chance to enjoy my first legal drink until six months after I was legal. Any time I got to go out with my girlfriends, I went insane and got plastered, and they had to drag my embarrassed and drunk ass home, and I rarely remembered the next morning through my hangovers. I had decided vodka and I were not friends; more like violent fuck buddies. Beer didn't taste that good to me, either.

"I'll be honest," I began. "I'm free all night, but I don't really know how to drink and just enjoy a beer with a group of people."

"Come on, I'll show you. It's not that hard."

We left the party with the rest of the MFA students and walked the three blocks to the bar off campus. It billed itself as a traditional Irish Pub now and had a very small microbrewery. Dad was more interested in this stuff than I was, and I had never quite paid attention when he talked about it. I was kind of relieved that no one recognized me when I walked in.

Ben's friend Gilbert and his girlfriend who had come to New York with him, named Sadie, were there, and Ravi, Sergey, and Liesel, who were MFA students, came too. The waitress took our orders, and I stalled, unable to figure out which beer to go with.

"Here," Ben said, taking the menu from me. "Get the Raging Redhead on draft. It's going to be a little strong, it's a red amber ale."

"You're not suggesting it because I'm a redhead?" I teased. "Don't let me get too drunk, okay? I need to get home."

"I'll make sure you get home safely. Just sip it and try to enjoy it. Try to measure your drink by mine."

"Bad idea. You can probably drink more than me."

"Good point."

We sat around the table and waited as the bartender in a navy-blue and green-plaid kilt came over and delivered our drinks. Mine had a shamrock drawn in the inch of foam at the top and was a deep amber-red color. Ben ordered some fried macaroni and cheese balls and some loaded fries. I took a sip of the beer, I decided I had to get used to the taste if I wanted to socialize like a normal person.

"So Alexis, tell me about yourself," Liesel said.

"I'm a native New Yorker," I said. "I'm in the social work program, and I've got a kid. That's about it."

"You have a kid?"

I nodded. "I realize that I am completely boring because that's all my life is; my baby and school. That's all I had to talk about at the party."

"Hey, look at this!" Ravi cried, holding up a little pop-up from the table. "A trivia night! 'Geeks who drink!'"

"That sounds fun," Sergey said, taking the pop-up. "Sunday nights?"

"How old is your baby?" Liesel asked.

"She just turned two back in August," I said. "My grandmother is watching her right now. She's a mess."

"This is _Alexis, Unexpected_," Ben said, as if it were some kind of accomplishment to be proud of. It was just some crappy blog. I realized he had just slipped an arm around the back of my chair. The bar was really cold, otherwise, I'd have shrugged it off. I liked the warmth of him because to put on my coat would have been too hot.

"Yeah, that's me."

"Oh!" Liesel cried. "Yes! I've heard about you! You've got that giant blog, don't you?"

"It's just…" I had around thirty-thousand followers and I was making a small income from the ads. "It's just a small blog."

"Small? You're kidding, right?" Ben asked.

I shrugged. "It's not a big deal," I muttered.

"Are you embarrassed?" Ben asked.

I shrugged again. "I just feel like all I ever talk about is Lily and I see people getting bored with me. Their eyes glaze over and they stop listening. I just don't feel like I'm any good at adult conversation anymore. I caught myself saying to one of my professor's students, 'is that boo boo?' the other day. And they laughed _at_ me. It was so embarrassing!"

Liesel laughed. "That's cute, though!"

"Yes, I've seen too many _Dora the Explorers._ She wants to go to see _Elmo in Toyland on Ice _but I'd like to see my grandma in _Tulips on the Lanai _on Broadway, but she can't sit through that, even though she loves Grams. I can't remember the last time I went to a concert, either., but there's no way I can take her to anything at night."

"When was your last concert?" Ben asked.

"I think it was freshman year, we sneaked in to see the Weeks, even though we weren't twenty-one yet."

"Oh, the Weeks!" Gilbert cried. "Great band! I've seen them like... four times?"

"I love that song _The House We Grew Up In_," Liesel said.

"I love that song, too," I admitted.

"I think we saw them twice at Bonnaroo and two other times in Chicago. That time in Chicago, they had the Whigs opening for them."

"We went to see them in Seattle when we went to visit my sister," Sadie said. "The Whigs, I mean."

I made a note on my phone to look up the Whigs sometime on Spotify. I listened to the conversation drift over to music and let them take over.

By the time I needed to get home, I felt very relaxed, but not quite drunk, and full from the bar food. I was invited to come to Sunday night trivia, the group wanted to play it. "I'll make sure you get home safe," Ben said, standing up as I put on my coat.

"That would be really nice," I admitted, buttoning and tying off the sash. "I just need to pay my bill."

"Me too," Ben said. "Bye, y'all. Have a safe Christmas if I don't see ya!"

"I don't celebrate Christmas, Ben, gah, being politically correct!" Ravi joked. "My family's Hindu!"

When we got to the bar and rang up our orders, Ben said, "I had the loaded fries, fried mac and cheese balls, a Guinness and an Irish Carbomb, and a Raging Redhead on draft."

"No," I said. "That was my beer and I had a few bites of that mac and cheese balls. I'm splitting those with you."

"I invited you out, so I'm buying it for you," he said. "Don't argue."

"I'll do what I want," I responded.

"Hey, you're Rick Castle's daughter, aren't you?" the bartender said.

I blushed. "Can I just pay for my drink?" I asked.

"No, your money's no good here. I'm not charging anybody for that one."

I realized it was useless. "I'm going to tip the waitress."

Once I had left some cash on the table, Ben and I started down the street for the subway stop. "Let me pay for your ride on the subway," I said.

"You don't have to," he said. "I live in Brooklyn."

"But if you pay for everything, it will have been a date."

"I tell ya what; you can pay me back with a story."

"A story?"

"Everybody has a story. An interesting one. You tell me a story about yourself, and we can consider the tab split fairly. I'm a writer, I collect stories."

"I'm really boring."

"I bet you're not."

The only story that came to mind was when I found out I was pregnant. "Okay, I'll tell the story of finding out I was pregnant."

"Sounds fair."

"I had moved out of my father's house and was so proud of myself, I didn't need any of his money, and I was with my boyfriend, and it was all going so well until I missed my period."

"Skip those details."

"I will. So, anyway, I went to the doctor, and they told me I was about… hmm, I think seven weeks along. I freaked out."

"Why?"

"I was the perfect daughter. You know who my dad is, right?"

"Yes. I've read his books."

"Nobody could believe I was his kid. He was so wild and crazy and there I was, doing my homework at his booksigning parties while he was trying to get me to drink champagne when I was still underage. That's how perfect I was, I was the one setting down the limits, he wanted to be really irresponsible my whole childhood. I was going pre-law, and having a baby would destroy any chances of getting into law school, I thought. I honestly couldn't stand the thought of how disappointed my dad would be. And how everybody would hate me if I had her."

"Why would anybody hate you for getting pregnant?"

"I'm supposed to be a role model, you know. I went to a really exclusive prep school, I did everything, and I do mean _everything_, to build my college resume, it was very competitive. I had more after-school activities than anybody, I spoke to elementary school groups and I volunteered at hospitals, the ME's office, I had internships galore in school, I just remember how sleep-deprived I was, but I got volunteer of the year more than once. Getting pregnant is not something a role model does. Nobody expected that out of me, everyone was shocked when it came out."

"It couldn't be that bad. You were on birth control, weren't you?"

"Yes. I wasn't that dumb."

_"_Of course not._ Did_ everybody hate you?"

"Some of my dad's fans did. And two of my 'best friends.' But no. I was really shocked at supportive and loving so many people were. My three best friends from prep school are still by my side. I'm going to see them tomorrow night at a Hannukah party. They're so good with Lily. And so supportive of us."

"People surprise you sometimes."

"They do. The three of them had a fight at my baby shower in front of everybody about who was going to be the godmother."

"Another story, that makes your total two. So, what about your daughter's father? What's he up to?"

I shrugged. "Funny story about that; my dad punched him in the face."

"Okay, this I gotta hear."

We were at the subway stop now, and I swiped my card, then he did. We walked through the turnstile. "Okay, the story is that I was so scared, we tried to go through with an abortion in Long Island, and we needed a car to drive down there. We scraped and saved, and we got the money raised in four weeks, but two days before, we had a fight. He left, and the next day, I came home and everything of his was missing, including the money. I panicked, and finally decided to go to my father and ask for help. Dad took me in, comforted me, and he drove me to Long Island himself. I changed my mind in the parking lot about aborting the baby, and the next day, we were moving me out of our apartment so I could move home to have the baby, and there was my boyfriend, sitting on the fouton, all worried. I told him I didn't have the abortion, and I was going to have the baby, and he said he was trying to raise the money to rent a car by selling his things to go to Long Island. He got angry with me when I told him I was having the baby, and he said, 'I'm not ready to be a dad' and Dad said, 'she's not ready to be a mom, but she doesn't have that option to walk away.' Pi didn't- oh, I'm sorry, Pi was his nickname- Pi just threw that wad of cash at me and said, 'Go raise your baby, Alexis.' My dad's fist met his face before the money even hit the floor."

"What an asshole!" Ben cried, looked disgusted. "Your ex, I mean. Who the hell gets a girl pregnant and then wimps out in front of her whole family? I hope you sued him for child support."

I shook my head. "No. He signed over all parental rights and went back to Copenhagen."

"Oh, he didn't want to have an American baby?"

"No, he was American, just had been an expat for a few years, and then moved here with me, and when shit got tough, he went back."

"All that legal mary jane."

"Pretty much yeah. That's what we bonded over and all we ever did. Well, not all we ever did, obviously."

"But your dad punching him out, that's pretty good."

"I didn't know Dad had it in him."

"It sounds like you have a good father."

"A great father. He's really the best one ever. So good, I didn't want to leave Manhattan to go to graduate school somewhere else and take Lily away from him. But Pi… I wish he would reconsider. Lily's pretty amazing."

"She seems like it," Ben agreed.

"I was so worried I messed her up because I high most of my first trimester with her."

"She seems really normal," he noted. "Pretty smart. Her vocabulary was pretty big."

"She is really smart. I found out my mom was blazed during her first trimester with me. I guess it helps?"

"No proof of that. You were a role model, but you were smoking up?"

"Well, I never really smoked weed until I went to Costa Rica and met Pi," I admitted. "And I haven't really smoked since my first trimester."

"It's not so bad. I had to take beta blockers in the military to calm down when I was shooting in combat."

"What?"

"Yeah, the military gives them out to pilots and snipers during war. It slows down your heartbeat and you calm down. Your hands shake less, your shots are steadier."

"That's encouraged?" I asked, stunned.

"In our military, yes. But I don't know of any other military in the industrialized world that allows their soldiers to take drugs to enhance their skills."

"That's insane!" I cried.

"You know professional musicians take beta blockers, too. Especially in symphonies and orchestras."

The train sped into the station and we got on board.

"Weed's not even that bad of a drug," he continued. "When it's grown correctly and without pesticides, it's much safer to ingest than opiates. Or krocodil."

"That cheap, Siberian heroin replacement?" I asked. "The one that rots your skin and gives you gangrene?"

"Yes, that's the one," Ben said. "I've seen krocodil addicts in real life. They're pretty fucked up. Worse than meth. That's what happens when social welfare programs aren't put in place and drugs get cut off from a rural region like Putin did. Cheap drug replacements come out and they're usually worse than the original."

"I don't remember this stuff being taught in drug awareness programs. Did you know I spoke to elementary school kids about deciding to be drug-free in high school?"

Ben and I burst out laughing. I remembered wearing pearls, a headband, a paisley skirt, and a peter-pan collared blouse to speak to all these kids. And then I spent the fall of my sophomore year stoned out of my mind.

"Yeah, I'm a hypocrite. Peer pressure got to me in college, finally! But I haven't heard much about krocodil."

"It's relatively new," Ben said. "Putin didn't want to instal any social welfare programs, like drug rehabilitation or methadone clinics in Siberia, and when they cut off heroin supply, the dealers started concocting drugs out of local haz-mat to keep the junkies high so they wouldn't lose business and they'd detox. It made the crime rates spike drastically. Krocodil took over for heroin when it wasn't available."

"Scary," I muttered.

"It's the stuff of nightmares, alright," he agreed. "There's been cases of krocodil being found in Chicago and New York, but it's not as profound in America, yet. The DEA is trying to keep it out. So far, it's not taking over for heroin in the States yet, mostly because heroin's still being supplied through illegal means."

The train stopped at my exit. "This is my stop," I said.

"I'm walking you back to your place," he said.

"Well, thank you," I said, wrapping my coat more tightly around me to brace myself for the cold air on the street.

"Any time."

"It was really nice to get out among people my age," I admitted. "Thank you for the beer and the food."

"You told me three stories," he said. "So that means I'm paid back for tonight. But I owe you two more."

"You carried me to the medics, that counts for something."

"What was I going to do? Just leave you there and let the ambulance hold up the race to pick you up?"

"I can't really date, Ben," I said at the door.

"Who said anything about dating? I'm a writer, I collect stories. Now I'm the one in your debt."

I blushed; how embarrassing. He didn't want to date me.

"Tell ya what; you can come to trivia night with us two more times after Christmas, I've got the tab."

I wanted to be around adults. He seemed to want to be my friend, which I could use. I used to have a lot of guy friends, before I got pregnant, but I didn't anymore. Sitting around and chilling out with a guy and his friends seemed like fun, now. "Alright. After Christmas," I agreed. "Good night Ben. And Merry Christmas."

I slipped into the lobby and to the elevator. Upstairs in my apartment, Grams was drinking a hot tea and reading a script while sitting by the fireplace with our little 3-foot LED tree lit up. Lily was obviously in bed.

"You must tell me how the party went?" Grams asked.

"It wasn't that great. I skipped out about an hour in because all I really had to talk about was Lily. People kept on getting bored with me."

"And you let me here all night with that little stinker?"

"Yes. I got invited out."

"Oh, do tell!" she cried, standing up to put on her shoes and put the tea cup in the sink. I unzipped my own boots and hung my coat on the coatrack. "What adventures did you have? What did you do?"

"Some of the other grad students in my office were going out, and asked me to go with them."

"Any of them cute boys?"

"They're not boys anymore, Grams."

She chuckled. "I know. Where'd you go?"

"McLeod's."

"Your father's bar?"

I nodded. "They recognized me when I went to pay for the tab. It was embarrassing."

"Well, was the whole night a bust, kiddo?"

"They want me to go to their trivia night. I don't know if I'll even be able to answer questions on anything other than babies and teaching freshman sociology."

"The point of trivia nights, that's to go hang out with your friends and drink beer forget all your worries."

"I'd need a babysitter?" I suggested, hoping she'd take the hint.

"You got me, kid," she said. She kissed my temple. "Good night."

* * *

_A/N- trust me, krocodil is some scary shit. In the Zombie episode, I swear that was the drug they were talking about and the zombies were on, although they made up a name for it and didn't go into detail. The pictures of krocodil addicts are positively revolting (and this is coming from someone who laughs at sebacious cyst popping videos) and the videos of people high on kroc are terrifying. It's highly addictive, but unlike an 8-hour heroin high, the high is only for like and hour and a __half. This shit is what happens when social welfare programs are abolished and that's why I support their existence, politically. Krocodil is a real thing._


	3. Chapter 3

_Disclaimer- I still don't own Castle, Andrew Marlowe does, and I don't want him to sue me for playing in his sandbox._

* * *

On Christmas Eve, Lily and I spent the night at Kate and Dad's. Lily was so wound up, she couldn't sleep. It took forever to get her down and asleep that night so we could load up the Christmas tree with presents for her. Dad made Kate play the lookout.

The next morning, Lily woke me up really early and insisted we go downstairs to see what Santa brought her. I insisted she wait for Grandpa and Nanny to wake up, but when I turned my back to get some orange juice for her and starting the coffee for myself, the little punk went and climbed on their bed to inform them Santa had been here. Kate brought her out and she tore into her presents and squealed at each one once Dad was up with his teeth brushed. We managed to get it on camera. By the time she was happily playing with her own toys, Grams and Jim came over and we started exchanging gifts and making Christmas brunch.

Lily wore herself out and was napping by eleven, which was a great relief for us. I put on another pot of coffee and went back to the table. Jim came over, and later, Grams.

"So I'm getting reports that you went on a date last Tuesday at McLeod's," Dad said.

"What?" I cried. "No, not a date! I just went with my friends for a beer while Grams was watching Lily!"

"That's not what I heard," Dad sang.

"Da-ad!"

"This is news to me," Grams said, taking another swallow of blood mary.

"It's fine if you're dating, just… be careful, okay?" Kate said.

"I'm out of here," Jim said, turning brick-colored.

"Dad, wait!" Kate called. "Dad, don't go yet!" She got up to run after him.

"Honey, I trust you to be intelligent," Dad began.

"Is this the birth-control guilt trip? Because seriously, I'm not dating anybody right now!" I insisted. "If I do start dating anybody, you can bet I am going to be so careful!"

"It was hard enough buying a safe apartment in Manhattan for you and Lily," Dad reminded me. "We cannot upgrade and get another one if you have another 'oops'."

I groaned. "Da-ad! Lily was an accident. A happy accident, but I am completely on guard."

"Here we are, Dad," Kate said, bringing her father back to the table. Jim sat down, looking reluctant.

"Can we not talk about Lady stuff anymore?" Jim said, a look of disgust and horror on his face.

"Dad, how would you feel about becoming a grandfather?" Kate asked him.

"I'm Alexis's grandfather already, aren't I?" he asked, looking confused.

I gasped. "Mom! Are you telling me-"

She broke out into a beaming smile. "I'm telling you. We just got the news, the fertility treatment was successful, I'm pregnant!"

I hopped up and hugged, squealing. "I'm so excited!"

"Me too!" Jim said.

"Excellent news, Katherine," Grams said, standing up. "I'm so happy for you!"

"We're going to keep it within the family until we can't hide it anymore," Kate said, holding me, rocking me back and forth. "I've already asked for a desk assignment at work until I can't hide it anymore. And then I'll go on maternity leave until the baby's born. Ann's teaming up with Espo and Ryan, and getting used to leaving me behind. It's going to work out great!"

"It's going to work out _well_," Dad corrected.

Kate stuck her tongue out at him.

"We're going to take it easy," Dad added in. "It was so hard to get pregnant, all that we've been through!"

"Yeah," Kate said, still holding me. She rocked me back and forth again. "You have no idea how happy this makes me!"

"It makes me happy, too! See, I told you if I moved out, you'd conceive! But," I winked, "you'll still be good for babysitting while I'm in my evening classes, right?"

* * *

I did follow-through with going to the Sunday night trivia with Sergey, Gilbert, Sadie, Liesel, and Ben. I wasn't sure I could keep doing this every week, but until school started up again mid-January, it seemed like a good way to relax. Lily and I had spent the day with Tara, enjoying watching Christmas movies and eating leftover latkes at her mom's luxury apartment in the Upper East Side. Grams watched her while I played trivia. Last week, we had won second place, and afterwards, Ben took me home. I let him walk me up to my apartment door and introduced him to my grandmother, who was excited to meet him each time.

"I cannot, for the life of me, tell the difference between Ted Kennedy and Newt Gingrich," Gilbert said, stroking his beard, studying the picture page of political 'fat cats.' We had identified half of them, but Kennedy and Gingrich looked too much alike. We were sitting in our favorite booth in McLeod's and playing trivia. "That's really sad."

"That one's Kennedy and that's one Gingrich," Ben said, pointing.

"Are you sure?" Gilbert asked.

"I'm sure," Ben said.

"This is trivia!?" some drunk slob at the bar asked. "Let's play!" They were so loud and obnoxious, it might have been funny if they weren't sitting right behind us. I felt secure because I was sitting with Ben. Had I not been, I'd have been a little scared of them coming onto me.

"I can't tell the difference, either," I admitted. "If I had their fiscal policies, I could."

"I don't think the two of them could be any different," Ben noted. "Am I the only one seeing this?"

"Yes!" we all cried.

Sergey got the pencil and drew a dick heading into Chris Christie's open mouth. I started giggling, it felt like I was back in high school and one of my classmates was defacing his textbook. I wasn't the only one giggling, and before I knew it, we were all laughing so hard, we missed a trivia question over the speaker. The next thing I knew, Sadie took the pencil and drew a penis, then Gilbert drew what looked like a shark head with an open mouth, taking the penis in.

"That's not what my vagina looks like, Gilbert!" Sadie cried. We lost it.

"I'm pretty sure that's what one looks like when baby's popping out," Sergey said.

"Hey!" I cried. Sadie popped Sergey on the shoulder and we couldn't stop laughing at ourselves.

"We've got to come up with a name," I said. "We still haven't!"

"What did he say?" the man at the bar asked.

"I say we name our team 'Shut the fuck up at the bar,'" Ben said.

"Yes, oh my God!" I cried. "That's it!"

I scribbled the name down on all eight sheets, since I had the neatest writing in the group.

We lost the trivia game by ten points, but placed second and won a $25 gift card to McLeod's, which we split amongst us. The drunk assholes at the bar left before the second round was over. Again, Ben asked to escort me home. When we got outside, we were hit with a wall of snow. There were no cabs out, and Ben had his restored motorcycle parked on the sidewalk. "Come on, I'll drive you home," he said. The ride home was so cold, and I was shivering when we arrived at my apartment.

"Come in and warm up," I said. "I'm sure Grams has the fireplace going."

Upstairs, Grams was waiting on us and Lily was already in bed. Grams had the TV on.

"It looks like the storm is worse than we thought," she said. "Come in and warm up, you two. I put some decaff on when you called me from the bar."

"Thanks, Grams," I said as she went into the kitchen.

"Benjamin, dear, how do you take your coffee?" Grams asked.

"Like I take my women, Miss Martha, black and strong."

A loud guffaw escaped my mouth.

"Oh, you're a charmer, aren't you," Grams said, returning with the coffee cups, winking at him. Ben and I stood by the fireplace to warm up and sipped our coffee. "I've got an early morning class if the snow's not too bad, I'm going back to my place. Good night, dear."

"'Night, Grams," I said as she kissed me good-bye.

"Good night Miss Martha," Ben said. "I'll be on my way out in a moment, too."

Ben and I finished our coffees and we watched the TV station.

"I've gotta get back to Brooklyn, have a good night," he said, getting his leather jacket out.

"Ben, no, I'll put a blanket on the couch," I said. "Don't go out there. That was completely excruciating from the bar to here."

Ben opened his mouth, but I stopped him.

"Your bike's parked," I said. "Just stay here. There's a fire and I just went to the grocery store. I'll make french toast in the morning. I promised Lily."

He glanced out the window and saw the snow accumulating. Usually in the winter in New York, snow was grey slushy stuff that was pretty gross, but once-in-a-while, it was beautiful white dust. On the window sill alone, it was already piling up.

"Alright," he said. "Just this once."

I went to the bedroom and got a few blankets and some fresh sheets out and made up the couch into a bed for him. "It's a sleeper couch, but honestly, the bed really sucks," I admitted. "It's better to just sleep on the couch."

"Thanks, Allie," he said.

I slipped into the bathroom through the kitchen and ran a hot bath and turned up the bedroom and bathroom radiator. The back half of the apartment got cold when I had the fireplace heated up. Lily's little room was warm, but that was because Grams had left a small space heater on. I kissed her good-night and I went to the bedroom in my towel to change into my pajamas. Once I was changed, I peeked out the door to see that Ben had all the lights off but a lamp. I knocked on the door and I heard him sit up. He was holding the copy of _Casino Royale_ I had borrowed from Dad's Hampton house the night after his and Kate's wedding. I saw the Queen of Hearts as the bookmark still, sitting on the couch beside him.

"Hey, I laid out a spare toothbrush in the bathroom," I said.

"Thanks," he said, putting the book down. "I'll turn out the light in a second."

I went back to the bedroom and checked my school email. NYU was shutting down precautionarily for tomorrow, so I didn't have to be there for the inservice. Too bad we weren't getting a school day off. The city was going to emergency measures because too much snow was falling too fast. I turned off the light in my room and climbed under the covers.

At one point in the night, Lily woke up and climbed into my bed. I pulled her in and held her tightly; she was a little space heater. The cuddles were the best, too. I woke up in the morning when Lily hopped onto the bed; she had gotten out at one point. "Mommy, who on da couch?"

I shot straight up in bed. I hadn't anticipated her finding Ben on the couch, asleep.

"That's… that's Mr. Ben. You met him while trick-or-treating at my office? Now let's be quiet, he needed to sleep over because it was too cold to get back to Brooklyn where he lives. Don't wake him up."

We sneaked into the kitchen through the bathroom and Lily started coloring at the kitchen nook table in her Little Mermaid coloring book while I made french toast. While I had it on the griddle, I brushed my teeth quickly and went back to the kitchen. I caught Lily watching Ben sleep, trying to sneak into the living room.

"Lily!" I hissed. She darted back into the kitchen and colored some more. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and it was Kate. "I'll call you right back," I whispered when I answered it. I put the toast on a plate for Lily, and drizzled it with pancake syrup and powdered sugar and cut it up so she could eat it and I put a bib on her. Only then called Kate back from the bathroom.

"I was making French toast for Lily," I explained. "I promised her last night."

"Are you guys warm enough?"

"Yes, we're doing just fine. I'm going to build a fire in a moment and warm up the apartment in a moment."

"I was going to invite the two of you and Martha over," she said. "Gates just called me and told me not to come in, it's too dangerous."

"Are you having morning sickness? Or are you hungry beyond all compare?"

"Both, can you believe that?" I could hear the smile in her voice. "I can't believe I'm taking pregnancy advice from my daughter."

"Yeah, me neither. I think this is just going to be a good day to relax."

"Same here. We might try to come over. We'll let you know."

"Alright, thanks, honey."

I hung up the phone and put the griddle back on the stove. Lily was getting syrup everywhere, despite my efforts. I was going to have to scrub down her seat, the table top, and the tile, then wash her PJs. For now, I'd just let her be a sticky mess.

"Good morning," a groggy voice said. It was Ben. He was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, looking all rumpled in his jeans and the t-shirt he had worn under his sweater, his hair sticking out in every direction, in his socks. I felt a surprising pang of lust hit me just for a second until I emotionally stabbed it out.

"Hi," I said. "How did you sleep?"

"That couch was really comfortable."

"Who you?" Lily asked.

"Lily, this is Ben," I said.

"I remember you. Hi, Lily," Ben said, kneeling down to her level.

"Hi," Lily said.

"Whatcha eatin'?"

"Fwench toast."

"I'll make some for you," I said.

"Mommy!" Lily whined. "Mommy?"

"Yes, baby?"

"Pony!"

"You want to watch _My Little Pony_?"

"Uh-huh!"

"Okay, I'll turn it on."

I turned on the Netflix on the TV and got it started and she climbed onto the couch and wrapped herself up in one of the blankets Ben had slept on.

I put a few more pieces of egg-soaked bread onto the griddle and started on Ben's breakfast. "Don't sit at Lily's seat, it's all sticky."

"I can clean it up," he offered. "Kids are messy."

"Thanks," I said. "My stepmother really wants us to come over. She didn't say, but I know she wants us to."

"Why do you think that?"

"I think she misses having us around," I admitted. "I know that sounds selfish, but we lived with her and my Dad until last September." I considered telling him about Kate's pregnancy. "Can you keep a secret?'

"Sure, what?"

"My stepmother's pregnant, and she's really excited about it."

"You… actually want younger siblings?"

"Well, it's not about me," I said. "When they got engaged, they wanted to have children. I put a kink in that plan when I got pregnant, but they started trying after their wedding. About this time two years ago."

"They've been trying for two years?" he asked, sounding stunned.

I nodded. "It really depressed her for a while," I said. "I hated seeing her that way. I feel a little guilty."

"Why?"

"I got pregnant without planning it. I was on the pill. She's worked so hard to get pregnant and worked on it for so long, fertility specialists, IVF..."

"I can imagine, it's embarrassing. She has to be ecstatic."

"She is," I said. "They're not telling everybody until she starts to show."

"Then why'd you tell me?"

I glanced over, and he was grinning. "Because I can't tell everybody else!"


	4. Chapter 4

_Disclaimer- I still don't own Castle, Andrew Marlowe does, and I don't want him to sue me for playing in his sandbox. I'm just having fun, I make no moneys._

* * *

Ben and I took Lily sledding in the park on an intertube that day after the snow plows had been through. He was able to take his motorcycle back to Brooklyn and he left for the day when we were soaked and done with intertubing. The subway was working, so I took the train to Kate and Dad's house. Once we got there, we dressed down to our long underwear and hung out our wet clothes and socks by the fire to dry. I showed them the footage of Lily and me intertubing on the snow, Lily squealing _weee_! the whole way down.

"Aww!" Kate cried, seeing it. "I can't wait to do this with my baby!"

"Me too," I said. "It's so fun."

"I'm going to miss it this winter," Kate said, rubbing her stomach. "I wish I had been there."

"Next time," I said.

Dad brought Lily into the kitchen. "I'm putting a hot cocoa on for Lily," he said, loading a hot cocoa Keurig. "Anybody else want one?"

"I'm good with my coffee," I said.

"Mister Ben spend the night," Lily announced.

"Mister who?" Kate asked, surprised.

Dad looked at me out the corner of his eyes and followed with his head. "Not that guy from your office?"

"Lily!" I cried. "Thanks for throwing me under the bus!"

"The wheels on the bus go wound and wound…" she began singing to spite me.

"You're a punk," I told her.

"No, I think _you_'re the punk!" Dad cried.

"He just spent the night because of the storm!" I explained. "He wasn't dressed for the snow and it was too cold to send him home over the George Washington Bridge on a motorcycle."

"Oh, he rides a motorcycle, huh?" Kate said knowingly. "A bad boy?"

"And he slept on the couch," I added. "We're just friends."

"That's not the feedback from McLeod's," Dad said.

"Of all the people in that group, I probably hang out with Ben the most," I said. "He's very interesting. And he doesn't mind me talking about Lily all the time. Dad, look, you said-"

"I just want to make sure you know..." he glanced at Lily, "the _gravity_ of the situation so you don't fall into the same problem without meaning to."

"You told me that you wanted me to be happy. And have good… you know." I didn't want to say the word _sex_ in front of Lily because she was a little recording device. I always reminded Nina to watch her mouth around Lily, too, the first time Lily said _fuck_ I blamed it on Nina. "Was that just lip service or were you serious?"

"It's not," he said. I got Lily's hot cocoa from the Keurig and put it at the table. She darted off to drink it.

"Lily, make sure you finish that at the table. There is no drinking in the rest of the house, okay?" I said. "Stay at the table."

"O-tay."

Back in the kitchen, I went to get my coffee.

"Honey, we're not trying to rag on you," Dad said.

I shrugged. "I was going to start dating again someday," I said. "Why are you acting like I can't handle it, suddenly? Like I'm going to haphazardly sleep with the next man that comes along without protection? That's not my style!"

"I'm sorry," he said. "Don't you think what happened is a father's worst nightmare for his daughter to be impregnated and left to fend for herself? That's she's abandoned and alone and having a baby she didn't expect? So much was beyond your control, too. I'm just afraid that birth control isn't going to be very effective on you ever, and you're going to end up with thirty kids if you're not careful."

"Grams had sex after she had you," I pointed out. "And she didn't get pregnant."

"Thank you for that reminder, dear," he said, grimacing.

"You're welcome."

"But she also had a partial hysterectomy when she was twenty-five, too. She didn't want any more children after me."

"I wonder why."

"Alexis," he said in a warning tone.

"Dad, I want more children, just not right now. I'm trying to make plans and be responsible. And I'm not having sex with him anyway. We're just friends."

"Are you sure?" Kate asked.

I saw Dad grimace again. "I don't know," I admitted. "He's not showing a lot of interest in me."

"Are you sure?" Kate looked surprised.

"I'm sure. I think we're just friends and that's it. You guys are getting upset over nothing!"

* * *

I decided to go to trivia every Sunday night. It was nice to be with people my own age that wanted to talk about adult things like politics and scientific theories and enjoy adult beverages over apple juice and Pedialyte. Grams was willing to watch Lily every Sunday night after the afternoon show so I could go do it. I found myself craving beer, oddly. I never liked it before. And I needed to get back into dating. I relied on Tara, who was now living and working in New York again.

Tara recommended that I come to the Jewish Singles night. She took me, and I cringed at some of the guys I met. The next time, Lily and I went to Shabbat with her instead. The service was kind of boring, but I found two guys standing behind us and Lily was looking up at them. She was shaking her head completely seriously, and they were looking down at her, nodding. I realized it was some kind of game for them. They weren't listening to the rabbi at all. Afterward the service was over, Tara and I were leaving and taking Lily for Saturday brunch, but the exit bottlenecked. I realized Lily was looking over my shoulder and shaking her head. They were right behind us.

"She makes friends wherever she goes," I admitted.

"She kept on staring at us," one of the admitted. He was grinning like he thought Lily was awesome. She _was_ awesome. "We couldn't help it."

"We don't get a lot of redheads here, you were kind of hard to miss," the other one said. "Hi, Hamich Schornen, this is Morgan Hemson."

"Hi," Tara said. "You're new here, aren't you?"

"Yes, we are, " Hamich answered. "What are your names?"

"I'm Tara Hirschfield and this is Alexis Castle and her daughter, Lily."

"Nice to meet you," I said as we filed out to the narthex.

"We were just going to brunch at Le Petite Dejuener, do you want to join us?" Tara asked.

"I'd love to," Hamich said. "Morgan?"

"I can only stay for a little while, I've got to get back to work at one."

"Where do you work?" I asked.

"I'm a jr. analyst at Brewster-Keegan. It's pretty demanding."

Tara elbowed me. "You're a banker?" I asked.

"An analyst," he said. "More like I'm giving info to the senior bankers and they make all the money."

We shared a cab to Midtown to brunch and I immediately got out Lily's coloring book and crayons so she would be entertained. We immediately ordered coffee and I got an orange juice for Lily and ordered a kid's meal of bacon and pancakes.

"You're not Jewish, are you?" Morgan asked.

I shook my head. "I'm really not anything. My parents are lay-Catholics, but I think I've been to temple more than I've been to a Catholic mass."

"I'm Jewish, though," Tara said.

"Are you sure?" Hamich joked.

"I went to her Bat Mitzvah, I'll account for her," I added in.

It was like a double-date. I really hadn't been on a real date since freshman year at Columbia. I didn't count trivia night for obvious reasons.

Tara and I went to her mother's apartment after brunch.

"Hi, Mom!" Tara called when we entered. "I brought Alexis and Lily!"

"That's my _bubala_?" she called. "Lily, come to your _Bubbe_, baby, give me a kiss!"

Ellen emerged, wearing a muumuu and a turban, a pair of sparkling diamonds glittering in her ears and full make-up. Lily danced on the balls of her feet until Ellen picked her up and kissed all over her.

"We met some guys at Temple," Tara said.

"See?" Ellen said. "I told you you'd find a good Jewish boy if you kept on going to Temple!"

"Aren't you looking for a nice, Jewish man, too?" I joked.

"I am. Come on Lily bean, you want some matzo balls?"

"Yah!" Lily cried.

She took Lily to the kitchen and got out some matzo ball soup, making some for us, too, even though we had just had brunch as we told her about the guys.

"What about that nice boy from your office, Alexis?" Ellen asked.

I shrugged. "He just goes with me to trivia," I said.

"Except when he spent the night?" Tara teased.

"_Oi vey_," Ellen muttered. "Alexis, make sure he wears some protect, alright?"

I groaned and rolled my eyes. Would I ever hear the end of this?

* * *

I ended up talking to Morgan a few days later, and he asked me out to dinner. I cleared out my Wednesday night and got Dad and Kate to baby-sit for Lily, and Tara and I went through my wardrobe the night before to find something flirty, yet not slutty. I took it with me to work and left the sweater and skirt in my cubicle during the day. I changed into the outfit once my office hours and over. While I was waiting for the elevator, I saw Ben.

"You look nice," he said. I felt that familiar pang of lust again when I saw him. Damnit.

"Thanks."

"Going somewhere tonight?"

"Oh, just to dinner."

"Oh."

Things suddenly got awkward between us. We usually got into a discussion of trivia questions and why he knew the answer to practically everything. It was suddenly an uneasy silence.

"Who's watching Lily?"

"My parents. But only for a few hours."

The elevator arrived and we got on.

"How is she?" he asked.

"She's fine. A little winter cold, that's it."

"And your stepmom?"

"I talked to her this morning and she's just having a little morning sickness, but everything's good."

He nodded.

The elevator dinged again; we were on the ground floor.

"Have a good time at dinner," he said.

"Thanks. Good night."

When did things get so weird between Ben and me? If Ben was going to make a move on me, he'd have already done it. I had the feeling he wanted to, but had been waiting for the right time, it never came. That didn't mean that Morgan wasn't a good person to get to know. I took the subway to the restaurant and waited on Morgan at the bar. I got a cosmopolitan, unsure of what to drink. I didn't want to be drinking a beer when he arrived, although that's what I was craving. I had never had a cosmopolitan before, but I felt a little light-headed when Morgan arrived. "I'm so glad you got something to drink already!" he said. "Can you put this on my tab, please?"

"I already paid for it," I said, my vision a little hazy. "Wow, I'm feeling it! That was a strong drink!"

"We can order a water when we sit down."

"Thanks!"

We got to our table and I remembered to silence my phone. Then, it started. Morgan started asking about my dad's books. I spent most of the night explaining that I knew only a little bit about the next Nikki Heat novel that I had been spot-editing for him, but I wasn't going to give away any spoilers.

By the end of the date, I had sobered up and I really didn't want to go out with him again. The next thing I knew, he hailed a cab for me. "I'm going to go pick up Lily at my parent's house. Thank you for dinner, Morgan, good night!"

"I had a good time, Alexis, I'll call you?"

I waved and shut the door, but didn't say yes.

At Kate and Dad's place, Lily ran up to me on the balls of her feet, squealing and dressed in pajamas. "Hi, Lily bean!" I cried. "How was your day?"

"Good!" she responded.

I kissed with with a loud swak. "I missed you!"

"Pony's on!" She had been watching_ My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic_ with Kate, and Dad was cleaning up the kitchen from dinner.

"How did your date go?" Dad asked.

I shook my head and set Lily down.

"Not good?" Dad guessed.

I nodded. "He was a fanboy."

"Of who?"

"You."

"Aw, I'm sorry, honey."

"And I was so looking forward to dating again."

"Me too."

"Oh, a change of heart?"

"You were right; you've got to start back up sometime. But don't do it too often. We can't watch Lily every night."

"I'll have to tell my many suitors I'm limited on time. Why can't I just date David Tennant?"

"Because he's married, that's why."

Kate came into the kitchen. She was starting to show, if you knew what to look for. Tonight, she was wearing a Stanford sweatshirt with the neck, wristsbands, and bottom hem cut out and a pair of yoga pants with her hair pulled back in a knot on top of her head. I couldn't see her growing baby bump. "I take it that it didn't go well," she said.

I nodded. "It sucked."

"Sorry."

She got a sleeve of saltines out and helped herself to one. I took one, too.

"Dating used to be so much fun," I said. "Now, it's awful."

"Don't stop dating just because you had one bad date," Dad said.

"He's right. I've been on some dates that were so bad I wanted to dig the fork into my eye to get out of it," Kate said, miming the action.

"Fun," I said. "This one started to feel like torture at one point. I probably should have gotten completely smashed, that'd have made it better."

"Not when you got here," Dad said.

"Yes, we'd make you spend the night," Kate said.

"I'm going to take Lily home. She needs to get to bed. Thanks for watching her, sorry it was a waste."

"It's never a waste," Dad said.

"We're not planning on going out very much the next, oh say twelve months?" Kate said. "We don't mind watching Lily."

"I'm planning your baby shower," I responded. "You can't stop me."

"Lainey, Ann, and Jenny want to do that," she said. "But I think they'd love to have you helping. You've got their numbers?"

"I do. Speaking of which, I hope this guy doesn't call me," I muttered.

"Don't take the subway, here's some cab fare," Dad said, getting out his wallet. I considered the idea of having to carry Lily through the subway stop and refusing the cash, but changed my mind.

"Thanks, Dad. I'll see you two later! Good night!"

* * *

Morgan did call me, and I had to explain very gently, that I wasn't interested in seeing him again, that I didn't feel like we were hitting it off. He sounded disappointed, but I think it got through to him that I wanted to date someone who was into me, not my father's work.

Tara had gone out with Hamich, and they had had an amazing time. She had already had two more dates with him in one week. I was happy for her, finding somebody and it just being magic for them. She filled Jules, Nina, and me in by email after every date, and she even had sex with him on the third date. We could forever tease her about being a prude, because sluts did it on the first date, prudes waited until the third. That's when she told us it took everything she had not to jump on him on the first date. That girl was in trouble.

On Sunday afternoon while I was doing my laundry in the basement, I got a text from Ben.

_Are you still planning on going to trivia? I can pick you up._

_I hadn't considered not going. I considered the others in the group my friends, too._

_I'd love a ride. And yes, I plan on going._ I texted back.

A few minutes later, I got another text.

_How was your date?_

I had to laugh. He was fishing for information on it, I might as well tell him the truth. _Awful. I'll tell you about it at trivia?_

_I'll come by early._

I dressed for trivia in a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved plain shirt and a cardigan. They kept it cold in that bar for the wintertime. As I was getting dressed, the door buzzed. I ran to the living room in my bra and jeans. Lily ignored my boobs and state of partial dress over _My Little Pony_.

"You've got a guest," Tony said. "Ben Haversham?"

"Let him up." I cracked the door open and ran back to my room to get my top on and the cardigan.

Ben knocked on the door when he arrived.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Mistah Ben!"

"Lily bean," he said, acknowledging her.

"Hi," I said, coming out of the bedroom with my boots in hand. "I'm still getting dressed. We just got some laundry done."

"Lily, you don't help your mama with the laundry?" he asked.

"Don't know how," Lily responded, rolling over onto her back.

"Just let me finish folding this," I said, sitting down on the couch.

"This is a great show," Ben admitted, sitting down on the floor next to Lily.

"You're a Brony?" I asked.

"It's great animation," he admitted.

"Alexis? Lily?" Grams called, knocking on the door.

"Hi," I said as she walked in.

"Gams!" Lily cried, hopping up off the floor to hug her.

"Hello!" she cried, picking her up to kiss her. "Hello Ben, how are you?"

"I'm good, Miss Martha. I hope you are, too."

"He just came over early to pick me up for trivia. I'm still getting dressed." I folded the last pair of Lily's My Little Pony panties and shoved them into the laundry basket and took it back into the bedroom to put away. When I got back, Grams and Ben were talking about her acting school.

"Let me get my boots on," I said, "and we can go. Lily, are you going to go to bed for Grams when she tells you to?"

"Uh-huh." She didn't tear her eyes away from the screen.

"We're not going to have any trouble," Grams said. "We never do."

I zipped up my boot and stood up. "I'm ready. Can I get a kiss good-night?" I asked Lily. She finally looked away from the screen and reached for me. I planted a big kiss on her forehead and she kissed me back. "Bye, Lily! See you in the morning!"

Downstairs, where Ben's motorcycle was parked, he handed me his spare helmet and I buttoned up my leather jacket. It had warmed up a bit since the snowstorm, but it was still winter in New York. We arrived at McLeod's early and took a seat in the back after ordering a few pints.

"Alright, tell me before everybody gets here. What was it? Long, awkward silences and pauses? Nothing to talk about? He was a racist douchebag? He killed puppies and kittens for fun?"

I cracked a smile. "Oh no," I said. "It wasn't that at all. There was a_ lot_ of conversation. Most of it revolved around my dad and his books."

"Ouch."

"Yeah," I agreed. The barkeep came back and delivered our beers. "Maybe I just haven't been on a date in a long time."

"How long?"

"Um… Since before Lily was born."

"That's a long while."

I nodded. "It is. I was really good at dating before I got pregnant. Now, I kind of suck at it."

"I doubt it was you," he said. "You shouldn't ask somebody out because they're related to someone famous."

"Well, people do it all the time," I muttered. "It wasn't like this when I was a teenager. I actually liked dating."

He shrugged. "People are weird. But not everybody is."

"See, I met this guy with Tara at Temple. She's really hitting it off with the other guy we met, Hamich."

"It ends up like that."

"I just wish he had shown a little more interested in me."

"You can't help that. Hey, you ever had fried pickles?"

"No."

"You wanna try a few before the group gets here?"

"Sure." The bartender came back and we ordered. "I just want to really fall in love. Like my father and stepmother. They've got an amazing relationship."

"I haven't met your stepmother."

"She's great. Honestly, she's the most mother I've ever had. And she's never been a mom. You should meet her. You know I'm helping to plan her baby shower."

He shuddered. "I've never been to a baby shower. I wouldn't know what to do."

"I think my father was the only man at mine," I admitted. "It really is an all-woman event."

"Women get so excited about babies."

"Don't you?"

"I like them at Lily's age or older. Once they have a personality, you can actually have fun with them."

"Their personalities show up around the fourth month," I said. "The first four months of Lily's life, I was exhausted."

"Didn't your parents help?"

"Only when I got to the end of my rope. It's a little bit of _Schadenfreude_ that Kate's going to go through it soon," I smirked.

"That bad?"

"Apparently, all babies are that bad. But they're worth it."

"How did they meet? Your father and Kate?"

"He followed her on the job for a few years to write Nikki Heat. Someone was replicating dad's murder scenes from his books, and she was the detective on the case. She inspired him. She didn't give into him for four years."

"I have never made myself celibate for that long for a woman," Ben admitted.

"I never said he was celibate. She wasn't, either." I swallowed back that I been celibate almost that long since Lily was born.

"Oh."

"Yeah, they danced around it for a long time," I admitted. "Dad doesn't have the best track record, either."

"He was married before?"

"Yes. Twice, " I admitted. He nodded. "I didn't think this thing with Kate was going to last, but she was really patient. And she's been a good mother figure for me. And grandmother Lily."

"But she's never been a mom."

I grinned. "Yeah, she hasn't. We make jokes about how she's going to be coming to me for baby advice. But I really want her to be my forever mom, you know?"

He nodded.

"I don't anything about your family."

He shrugged. "Not much to tell. I got a couple of redneck cousins that live in trailers out in the boonies. And my mother married more than once."

"How many times?"

"Three times."

"I guess we have something in common. What about your dad?"

"Actually… my dad's dead. He lived in England."

"He died?" I repeated, stunned.

"Yes, he's British. I'd see him a few weeks a year." He chuckled to himself. "We'd watch some Doctor Who and he'd take me all kinds of places. I have pictures of us standing outside Police Boxes in England. It was really cool to be a dual citizen until I turned, oh say, fifteen and had to present my birth certificate at the DMV to get my learner's permit."

"You're a dual citizen?" I asked, surprised.

He nodded. "I'm sure you could tell by my cultured and sophisticated British accent."

I grinned into my beer and took another sip. "How did your parents meet?"

"He was an exchange student at Belmont. My mom went to the same school. They fell in love and got married, and I came about. They had another pregnancy, but lost her."

"I'm so sorry," I uttered. "That's terrible."

"Stillborn. That kind of did them in. My father never immigrated, officially."

"He didn't get a green card for marrying an American?"

Ben shook his head. "It doesn't work that way. They used to argue a lot about where they were going to live; England or America. I don't really ever remember them together. I was really little when they separated."

"I guess that's a good thing. I wish I could forget my parents divorcing."

"I can't think of anything more horrendous as a kid."

I shrugged. "I'm glad Lily will never remember me and her father together. I dread the idea that she'll go and search for her him one day and what she'll find out."

"What are you going to tell her?"

I shrugged. "She'll hear enough from my father, I guess… Dad says I picked up a lot about his relationship with Meredith, more than either of them wanted me to know. Lily's probably going to be that intuitive, too. Kids are a lot smarter than we think." I sighed. "I'm going to tell her that I was really unprepared, so was he. But that she was a happy accident. My dad never knew who his father..." I stopped myself. "He never knew."

"He didn't?"

I shook my head. "He's the product of a one night stand. Grams didn't know the man's name. She never saw him again."

"Never?"

I shook my head.

"That's sad."

"Dad made the best of it. He used to pretend his father was a secret agent. Or Steve McQueen. Or Mick Jagger."

He grinned. "I'd do that, too. Pi's name is on Lily's birth certificate, isn't it?"

I nodded. "It is. But he signed over all responsibilities. I just wonder if this is how adopted kids feel; their parents gave them up. She'll feel worse if he has kids later in life with someone else. I think my daughter's set up for abandonment issues and I can't do anything." The very thought brought tears to my eyes.

"I know what you should tell her. That real parents sometimes don't show up until much later. Like you and Kate."


	5. Chapter 5

_Disclaimer- I still don't own Castle, Andrew Marlowe does, and I don't want him to sue me for playing in his sandbox. _

* * *

After trivia, Ben took me home. I leaned on his shoulder on the bike on the ride home, even though the cold was biting my exposed skin. I had never voiced my concerns about Lily finding out about her father to anyone before. Chandra and I had talked about being vulnerable with the right people, sometimes, it was difficult to me. I realized how much I had longed for someone to voice those concerns to. Dad and Kate usually overloaded me with _you did the right thing_ and _what's done is done_ and shut me down there. I guess they thought they were closing my doors to my self-doubt. They had never let me explore it before, I guess in hopes that it would make me more confident. It didn't clear my mind of those self-doubts, though. Chandra didn't have the right answers, either, just let me explore some really scary thoughts and anxieties. I had to come up with them myself as Lily's mother.

I brought him up just to warm up for a moment and meet Grams. She made a hot toddy for us so we could warm up by the fire.

"Thank you, Miss Martha," Ben said. "I'm gonna stay a few more minutes to warm up before I go back to Williamsburg."

"Goodnight, Benjamin," she said, kissing him on the cheek. She kissed me good-night too, and I turned on the TV on a low volume and turned on _The Fall._

"You want to stay and watch this with me?" I asked. "Tara told me about it."

"Sure."

We sat on the couch and watched, and Ben was a little horrified at the almost ending. "I meant to only watch part of it," I admitted. "Not the whole thing."

"Me too."

"Do you really want to go home?"

"Honestly? No," he said.

"Do you want me to make up the couch for you?"

"Aaaand, I'm friend-zoned."

"I'm not friend-zoning you!" I cried. "I thought you were friend-zoning me!"

"I'm not, I swear! Why would you think that?"

"I kept on waiting for you to make a move! Why didn't you?"

"It never felt like the right time! I'm sorry, I thought you moved on when you had a date."

"I only went out with him because you were…" I cupped his cheek. "This is getting cyclical." I went ahead and kissed him and it was amazing. All that I was feeling towards him, it wasn't just lust; it was real. He was kissing me like he was hungry for me. I had forgotten how good kissing was. I was getting whisker burn already, but I didn't care. I wanted more. "Ben!" I cried, pulled away.

"Yes?"

"Do you want to do this?"

"You mean… sex?"

"Yes."

"Of course-" he went to get up.

"Ben, wait!" I uttered.

"Yes?"

"We can't have sex in the bedroom, we have to do it in here, otherwise, Lily will hear."

"I can do that-" He tore the buttons of my shirt open. I gasped in surprise.

"Do you have protection? I'm not doing this without it."

"Of course, you don't have to ask. I will take care of everything-"

"And you have to pull out."

"You want me to…?"

"I can't risk having another baby right now. Please, please…"

"Anything you want."

* * *

I dozed off after the best orgasm I had ever had to muffle in my whole life, I forced my eyes open. I really needed to pee so I didn't get a Urinary Tract Infection. I got up off the couch very slowly and carefully. Ben was snoring slightly, but his eyes opened with a start when I moved.

"Where are you going?"

"I need to pee."

"Wait a second," he said. "Don't move."

"Why?"

"Just wait," he got up and went to the kitchen. I heard the faucet run and he came back with a damp paper towel to wipe me off. I got up once he got me cleaned up. "Wait," he said. He picked up his discarded t-shirt. He pulled it over my head and I cooperated. "You can't run around naked, it's too cold."

"I'm going to bed in a minute," I said, standing up to kiss him. "Come to bed, okay?" I took the paper towel and picked up the discarded condom with a tissue to put in the garbage.

Afterwards, I slipped into the bathroom to pee and brush my teeth. I checked on Lily, who was asleep, and kissed her forehead. She looked so angelic when she slept, her little mouth open. I hoped she hadn't heard a thing and had been sleeping the whole time. How dumb was I, having sex?

No, I wasn't dumb. I needed to connect with another human being, and he was a good man. A nice man, a caring man who treated me like a lady. And like a friend. He even dressed me and cleaned me off after we gave into our baser instincts and fucked like rabbits on the couch just now.

I couldn't allow my judgment to be clouded by this man, though. My biggest error with Pi was that I excused his shortcomings. I didn't notice most of them until they were glaringly obvious. Maybe that wasn't fair to Ben, but I had to protect myself. And Lily especially. I deserved to have good sex, but not at the expense of the other important things in my life.

In my room, Ben was punching a pillow and standing beside the bed in his shorts. I pulled back the covers and turned on the radiator, and he got into the bed. He grinned as I came towards him.

"It's almost been three years since the last time I was with anybody."

"Lily's father?"

I nodded. "You know, he was my first."

"And you got pregnant?"

"Yeah. The whole time my dad kept on telling me that 'These things just happen.' It felt really unfair. And then I started getting called a whore and a slut and people were sexually harassing me. No way to hide it after the fourth month."

"But you're not a whore. I read that blog. It's epic. All dads should be like that."

"Dad couldn't very well write in his blog that I was a virgin when I met Pi, could he? He never cared about slut-shaming before I got pregnant."

"That's nobody's business," Ben said, running his nails lightly across my shoulder. I shivered again and he kissed me again. I melted into him. "And yeah, most women who get pregnant outside of marriage get slut-shamed anyway. It's not fair."

"It made me a lot more feminist than I ever thought I'd be."

"I consider myself a feminist, too. Women can do anything a man can. And that extends to having sex without judgment."

"Even if I make you wear a condom and pull out?"

He chuckled. "I've been waiting on you since the moment I first saw you. I knew. I just knew."

"So I take it we're doing this again?"

"Maybe tomorrow night?"

"We can talk about it. Only after Lily goes to bed."

* * *

The next morning, the alarm went off and I realized that there was a full-grown man in his shorts in my bed. The bed was warm and I didn't want to get out of it. Ben was breathing so hard, he was almost snoring again. I remembered that our clothes were all over the living room, and I didn't want Lily finding them and reporting to Dad. I realized that Kate had an ultrasound today, and she wanted me to be there to see it like she had been for all of mine.

Ben groaned and rolled over as I got out of the bed, and I realized I still wasn't wearing panties. I grabbed some fresh clothes and went to take a shower, but stopped to clean up our clothes and put them into the armchair in the bedroom. After my shower, I went into Lily's room to see she was out of bed. In my room, she was sitting on the bed, talking to Ben, who had the TV on to Sesame Street.

"Hi," Ben said. "We were just watching the Elmo Show."

"Lily, let's leave Mister Ben alone, okay? I'm going to make you some breakfast."

She pouted. I needed to put some coffee on- STAT. I picked Lily up and went to the kitchen with her, hoping this would give Ben ample time to shower and get dressed before then. We obviously hadn't really thought this through. How was I going to explain this to Lily? We had just been horny and vulnerable last night. But how did you explain that to a two-year-old? The shower turned on while I was making eggs.

Ben came out a moment later, dressed in his clothes from last night.

"I made breakfast," I said.

"I've got to get back to Brooklyn and change clothes, but thanks," he said. He kissed me on the cheek. "Call me?"

I nodded. "Bye."

"Bye, Lily."

"Bye!"

He left, and once the door shut, Lily turned to me. "Why he here?"

"What?"

"Why he come here?"

"Why did he spend the night?"

"Uh-huh."

"Because... he and Mommy are friends." Friends with benefits. "He's probably going to be here a lot."

"A lot?"

I shrugged. "Probably." I got Lily dressed for the day and we went to the medical office to meet Dad and Kate for the ultrasound. We got there first.

"Lily?" I asked. "We're not going to talk about Mister Ben spending the night again, right?"

Lily looked at me like I was insane. Dad and Kate walked in, looking excited.

"Hi! We're so ready for this!" Kate said. "We're going to get the first picture of the baby!"

"I'm excited!" I said. "Lily, this is going to be your new aunt or uncle!"

"Just think, two and a half years ago, this was you," Kate said. "I'm going to go check in."

"Lily," I said, seeing her standing up on the chair sit. "Sit on your butt." She squatted down, grinning mischievously and did as I asked, although I knew it was only going to be a few minutes before she was practically turning somersaults in the chair.

"Alexis, I wanted to tell you. Gina's interested in publishing your blog."

"Where?" I asked.

"No, I don't think you understand. She wants to publish a book based on your blog. This is really good news. She's been following your blog since the beginning."

"Ben spend night," Lily said

Dad's jaw dropped. "Alexis!"

"You little snitch!" I cried.

"What just happened?" Kate asked, coming over to the couch where we were sitting.

"Ben spent the night again."

Kate's jaw dropped this time. "I hope you guys used a rain coat," she snorted.

"Katherine Beckett?" the nurse called.

"That's me! We'll see you in a minute!"

I got out some of my first papers to grade of the semester. Lily got bored and started bothering Dad. Dad tried his best to entertain her with his iPad, but this took a long, long time. I started to get nervous.

Finally, the door opened.

"Mr. Castle?"

"That's me," Dad said. I put the papers back into the folder to follow.

"No, just Mr. Castle, please."

I felt something like that grinding fear in my stomach. Something wasn't right.

They were in there a long, long time. Lily was getting cranky and needed mid-morning nap, but I was afraid to leave. Right as I was going to text Dad, he came out.

There was no joy in his expression, just a haunted look in his eye. "Dad?" I asked.

"This is really bad, Alexis."

"What happened?" I asked.

"There was no heartbeat."

I gasped and felt sick. "What does this mean?"

"We're miscarrying. We decided on a D&C tomorrow and… I'm taking her back to the loft."

"Is she okay?" I asked.

"I don't know."

* * *

I spent the night at Kate and Dad's and she laid in bed. She didn't cry or talk for the longest time. After I made her dinner and left it for her, I went back and she hadn't touched it.

"Kate…" I whispered. "Just say something."

She shook her head. "I think it's just time to give up," she said softly. "I tried for so long. I tried not to get so down about it." She finally sat up. "All this time, I thought we'd overcome it. My one regret. I didn't get to experience pregnancy and giving birth." It finally happened; tears filled her eyes, finally. "I know there's always adoption and surrogates." She wiped her eyes with the side of her fingers. "I guess you can't have it all."

I hugged her and climbed into the bed with her, where she cried in my arms for a long, long time, until she fell asleep. There was nothing I could say to her to comfort her other than to tell her I loved her.


	6. Chapter 6

_Disclaimer- I still don't own Castle, Andrew Marlowe does, and I don't want him to sue me for playing in his sandbox._

* * *

My birthday was a bust; I didn't feel like celebrating this year, especially with the bad news.

Dad encouraged Kate to try just a little while longer once she recovered from the D&C. She started to act like nothing happened, she threw herself into work and being the best grandmother in the world to Lily.

My birthday passed and Ben and I celebrated quietly with our trivia team at McLeod's and Tara and Hamich came along, too. A few days later, I got a frantic call from Dad.

"Alexis, why did you let me forget your birthday?" he cried.

"Dad, don't worry about it," I said. "I went out with Tara and Ben and our trivia team."

"But... I owe you a present!"

"You baby-sit Lily everyday all the time, you gave me an apartment. I don't need a present."

"We didn't take you for a birthday dinner."

"It's never too late."

"No, really, let me do something for you. You've been really great since this whole thing happened with the baby."

I thought about it. "Can I go to the Hamptons House for the weekend with my friends?"

Dad paused. "Are you going to take Lily along?"

"Actually, no," I said. "Would you and Kate watch her for the weekend?"

"I would," he said. "You're inviting Ben, aren't you?"

"Yes," I said, a little aggravated. "And I'm inviting Tara and her boyfriend."

"Alright, you can go to the Hamptons House for a weekend."

"Valentine's Day weekend?"

Dad sighed. "Okay. Valentine's weekend."

You can't imagine the excitement of packing up a rental car and going to the Hamptons for the weekend with Tara, Ben, and Hamich on a late Friday afternoon. The trip down was more fun than I anticipated, and when we got there. Hamich called making dinner first, so Tara, Ben, and I sat down to watch the UConn versus Belmont basketball game while he played his banjo for us.

"My dad's really into basketball," Tara admitted.

"I have to root for Belmont, my mother's a graduate."

"Where is Belmont?" Tara said.

"Nashville. My hometown."

"Did you go there?"

He shook his head. "No. Vanderbilt, down the street."

"I've heard of Vanderbilt," I said. "Before I met you."

"How?"

"My dad used to play poker with James Patterson, and he went to grad school there," I said. "I actually considered Vanderbilt for college."

"Our paths almost crossed?"

"I think so. Funny, huh?

"Small world," Tara said.

"What year did you graduate?" I asked.

"A while back."

"No, I mean, you went into the Marines for a few years. I don't know the timeline."

"I graduated in 2009 from Vanderbilt and then enlisted."

"That long ago?" I asked, surprised.

"Yes."

"You're older than I thought! How old are you?"

"I just turned thirty last summer."

My jaw dropped. "I'm so much younger than you!"

"Have you two met?" Hamich joked.

"It doesn't make a difference, now that we're in our twenties," Tara offered. "Hamich is twenty-eight."

Thirty. It made sense that he had made a career in the Marines for so long and was just now getting back to school to get his MFA.

"It's only seven years difference, Alexis," Ben said, playing a chord.

There was eight years difference between Dad and Kate. But six years in the military?

After dinner, we smoked a joint and Ben shocked all of us with his ability at Trivial Pursuit. Even after a few beers, he was still sharp and knew all kind of political facts.

"How do you do that, bro?" Hamich asked.

"Photographic memory."

"You've got a photographic memory?" I asked, thinking. "Yes, you do!" I cried, remembering how he always remembered everything I told him. Even I wasn't that good.

"What's the point of playing trivia with Ben, then?" Tara joked.

"You've been holding out on us at trivia night!" I cried.

"I don't want to show off," he admitted.

"So you let us get answers wrong on purpose?"

"Meh, it's kind of unfair. Anybody wanna smoke a joint in the hot tub?"

After getting a little stoned in the hot tub, we went to bed, since it was past midnight. I had bought a few sheer pieces of lingerie along for the weekend that left little to the imagination, which I changed into after a quick rinse-off shower. There was something terrifying about coming out into the bedroom in front of him in this. My biggest fear was that he'd laugh in surprise because this wasn't something I felt entirely comfortable in. I didn't want to look silly in front of him. I took my hair down and tried to make it look effortless. My eyes were still a little bloodshot, but that didn't matter so much, right? I hadn't had to wear much to get Pi's attention. But now, I wanted it, and I was dressing the part. I just hoped I was convincing, not stupid-looking in this sheer thing.

I cracked the door to the bedroom open nervously. Ben was under the covers and the fireplace was blazing with the flatscreen showing CNN. He was half-way reading a book.

_Chechnyan Rebel Drug Ring Wreaking Havoc in East. Europe_ said the caption. I took a deep breath and took a step out into the bedroom, trying to look like hey, I wore see-through lingerie all the time, no big deal, I'm completely comfortable. He did a double-take at me as I came out. He closed the book without the bookmark and set it aside on the bedside table. "You look amazing."

"Thanks," I said. I climbed under the covers, which had been warmed up with the electric blanket. Dad had spared no expense in this house.

Ben drew me into his arms and kissed me. He felt so good, pressed up against me with a flimsy, sheer layer of clothing separating us. His hands started exploring me through my nightie between kisses. Something bothered me; he had so many years unaccounted for. I hardly knew him. I pulled away a little bit.

"What's wrong?"

"I hardly know you."

"No, you do."

"What about those years in the military?"

He shrugged. "I did a lot of work, but didn't get much done."

"That's it? Where were you stationed? Did you go to combat in Iraq or Afghanistan? What did you do in the Marines?"

He sighed and leaned back onto the mattress. "This is the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in, have I told you that?"

"Don't deflect, Ben."

He sighed. "I saw combat. You've seen the scars on my back and sides. I told you about taking beta-blockers in combat to shoot better."

"What happened?"

"General stuff."

"Where were you?"

"All different places. I volunteered for assignments that weren't domestic."

"Why?"

"You really want to know why?"

"Yes."

"My dad died. I knew that the military would stop me from thinking about it so much. You stop thinking of yourself as an individual in the marines. It helped me cope."

"What kind of work did you do?"

"I cleaned toilets and greasetraps in the mess hall," he chortled.

I could hear the bed squeaking down the hall. Tara and Hamich were going at it. I wanted to know Ben better- I thought I did, but he seemed like a complete stranger, now. "What else? That's pretty basic stuff for the military."

"I was a sniper. Among other things."

That admission took me aback.

"I shot enemies of the state from a far distance. And I usually got them. I can't tell you where, though. Alexis, there are things I'm not allowed to tell you as a Marine."

I propped my head up on my fist, studying him. "So you killed people from a far distance on order?"

He nodded. "They were enemies of the state," he repeated. "Bad people who killed innocents or for power or for money. All of them were on order from the government."

"How do you live with taking so many lives?"

He shrugged. "I just do. That's what marines do. That part of my life is over, though. I hope. I don't think I'll ever go back to it."

"Why not?"

"Because things have changed."

"What kind of things?"

A smile cross his face, and I felt hot and bothered. "I fell in love with you and Lily."


	7. Chapter 7

_Disclaimer- I still don't own Castle, Andrew Marlowe does, and I don't want him to sue me for playing in his sandbox. I'm just having fun, I make no moneys._

_Okay, here comes the real meat of the story, I hope I don't lose my readers. I think I'll have to write the rest of this before I post it because of continuity._

* * *

"One more," Lily said.

"No more. I've already read you two stories," I said. "Ben is going to be here soon." She shot up in bed. "He'll be here before you get in bed, alright? You'll get to see him."

She climbed across my bed in her pajamas. I couldn't believe how fast she was growing, she had just had her third birthday. I had to get the spaghetti started.

She turned on the TV and the Netflix to watch _Monster High_. I hated that her_ My Little Pony_ days were over and she wanted these scary monster barbie dolls. But she was growing and changing before my very eyes, her tastes and speech did, too. Tony buzzed the door twice, and I hit the answer button. That was sort of our signal that Ben was coming up and we didn't need to speak.

Ben opened the door. "Ben's home!"

Lily squealed and ran up to him for a hug. As close as Ben and I were, a part of me still didn't trust him to be her forever father. I understood why Dad had kept such a wall up between Gina and me, and then Mom and me; deep down, he didn't trust either of them to be my mother forever. A part of me didn't trust that he wouldn't abandon us one day, like Pi had done. I would always be her mother, and she was always my daughter; there was nothing that could ever break that. And I was so careful to trust Ben, but I couldn't give in to him 100 per cent.

"Hi," I said, standing on my toes to kiss him quickly. "I'm almost done with dinner."

"I could have brought it," he said.

"No, it's my turn."

"Pas-ketti!" Lily sang out.

"And meatballs?" Ben asked.

"Yup!"

I went back to cooking.

"I don't see why Princess Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie aren't as good as this," Ben said in the living room. "These girls are dead!"

"No, only Fwankie's dead," Lily informed him. The timer went off, so I dumped the noodles in the colander. I had the sauce heating up and the meatballs in the microwave. I grabbed the plates from the cabinet. "She is fifteen days old!"

"Is that older than you? I have a hard time remembering."

"No, I'm dis many!" Lily cried. I could see her in my mind's eye, holding up three fingers.

"Dinner's ready!" I called before Ben could tell her she was a Tiny Princess who couldn't possibly be that many.

Ben paused the TV and picked up Lily to put her down on her booster seat. I made her plate and put a bib on her, Ben helped himself, or so I thought until he set down a plate with a generous amount for me, too. He kissed me quickly before we sat down. I loved these evenings alone with Ben and Lily.

After dinner, we put Lily to bed with another story. We went to the living room to watch _Pacific Rim_ and wait on her to get to sleep. We made out for a while, it wasn't a big deal when Lily caught us kissing, but sex? Humongous deal for her to walk in on. We didn't get to spend a lot of nights together, although he had things at my place. I rarely spent anytime at his apartment, though, mostly because of Lily. Also, it was in Brooklyn.

"Let me just check on her," I said, pulling away. "Be right back."

I went to Lily's room, and she was passed out. I went and got a condom from out of the bathroom, and then shut the door with a towel at the base, then shut the door to the kitchen with another towel muffling it out. I did the same thing with the door to my room.

"Alright, we're good," I said, tossing the little packet down on the coffee table. I climbed across the couch to him to kiss him. His mouth grazed mine, and the delicious feeling of indulging my lust began to grow in me.

Ben broke off the kiss. "You know, we could get a bigger apartment if we'd move in together, you wouldn't have to go so far to hide things from Lily. We could just lock the bedroom door."

I groaned. Ben brought this up all the time, even more so now that we had celebrated our eight-month anniversary. Any feelings of sexual excitement suddenly crashed.

I saw the irritation cross his face at my groan. "I'm not going to do to you what Pi did," he said through his irritation. "We've gotten by this long and nothing's happened."

"We'll get sloppy if we move in together."

"I just want to share my life with you, that's all," he said.

"I know," I said, sitting up.

"Alexis, I'm not your father," he said. "But you can trust me. The male half of the species isn't all alike. Your father's not an exception; some of us are willing to stand up for the woman they love, even if something unexpected and unplanned happens."

I got up and went to the kitchen to clean up to avoid this conversation. No man would ever stick beside a woman, _me_ when I accidentally got pregnant, except my father. I knew deep down that Ben would run, too, like Pi had done. While I was angry at Pi for not being there for me, he wasn't really responsible for me. I hadn't pushed for a bigger commitment from him when we moved in together. I didn't trust Ben to stick around, even though he had the truest heart of any man I had ever dated. It was just in men to run when things like this happened unless they had planned it. They could avoid responsibility. I couldn't, as a woman.

"Alexis!" he called as I left the room.

I didn't want to spend my morning scrubbing off crusty red sauce off the plates anyway. He followed me into the kitchen.

"I keep thinking I'm getting closer and closer to you and Lily. I want to be her father, and I swear. And then, you put up another wall."

"I'm not putting up a wall."

"Yes you are!"

"Can we just wait a few minutes?" I asked. "Until I'm done with the dishes?"

He snapped up a dish towel and held out a hand. I put a dish into it.

"Why are you so afraid of getting hurt? Why do you think I'm going to hurt you?"

I couldn't tell him why. I shrugged. "I don't know."

"Alexis, what do I have to do?"

"What are you talking about?"

"What do I have to do to get you to trust me?"

"I_ do_ trust you!" I handed him another scrubbed dish and he dried it.

"You trust me to pull out, but that's about it!"

"Are you insinuating I'm using you for sex?" I asked, incredulously.

"If the shoe fits, wear it," he grumbled. "Usually, it's the woman who worries that she's being used. How the hell did the gender roles get flipped in this relationship?

"I have a hard time with the idea of changing things voluntarily. Because things don't work out. I'll have to run back to my dad in more trouble than before. And I'm not willing to do that for him"

"But we'll be together."

I shrugged. No, we wouldn't. Men ran when unintended pregnancies happened. They didn't stick around.

"Change is inevitable, Alexis."

I rinsed the spaghetti pot under the tap.

"You can't be afraid of change."

"I know," I said. "But I'm not on my own, yet. My father's paying for my apartment and my stipend from work only pays for food and clothing for Lily and me, and the blog income pays for the utilities. I want to be independent before I start making choices that could change everything."

"I wouldn't let anything happen to either of you. I love you both. We love each other. We say it all the time. I want Lily to call me 'daddy.'"

I dropped the dish and it clanged to the floor but didn't break because it was plastic. Ben bent down to pick it up and handed it back to me. I bit my lips together at what he said. A forever father for Lily. I'm sure it sounded good in his head, but I knew he'd walk if another baby came along. Besides, I didn't trust anybody to love Lily as much as I did. And I knew that was selfish, but I couldn't help but believe it. Pi hadn't loved her and didn't want to bother with her. He was her own blood, he helped make her, but he left us.

"You're thinking of Pi again, aren't you?" he asked, drying the clean saucepan.

I nodded and scrubbed the plate again.

"He didn't love you. He was a man-child and not ready for anything. He was fucking you for himself and didn't consider the consequences. He didn't love you like I love you. Either of you. I love you both so much."

The hot water burned my hand as I rinsed the dish again, but I didn't flinch I stuck the pan into the dish drain to dry instead of hanging it to Ben.

"I promise-" Ben began.

"Pi made promises too," I said. "He didn't live up to any of them."

"I'm not Pi."

* * *

This semester, Ben and I had Tuesday and Thursday mornings off from school, which was an excellent excuse to have mornings with Lily. Ben had given up for the night on getting me to talk about moving in together again. He had to leave for an appointment with his boss at NYU. Lily and I went to the library for the children's hour.

Like my father had done for me, I loved the library. Lily could already read some really simple books, both Dad and I had been teaching her her ABCs. She was already piecing together simple words like CAT and AT and BAT. I read a lot to her, too. Her sentences were beautifully complicated compared to the other children her own age. I loved that she could speak so well and her vocabulary was advancing so quickly. I could hardly believe she was three.

We got off the Subway and she dashed ahead of me towards the library. That was Richard Castle in her.

"Lily, slow down!" I called after her Hello Kitty backpack. We had packed it up with her books from last week that we were going to return.

"The li-barry, Momma!" she cried. "I love the li-barry!"

"Me too," I said, holding out my hand. She grabbed it and dragged me a long, her little braids bobbing. "I know you can't wait to get new books! I can't, either!"

"Li-barreeee!" she drawled, as if she had been deprived of water and could see an oasis in the distance, taking my hand and pulling me along.

We went inside and Lily pulled me towards the elevator for the children's section in the basement. We saw some of her friends and they hugged her. The children's hour mostly consisted of the librarian reading a book to the kids and doing a craft project. This gave me a chance to check out a few books on my own upstairs.

Lily took her friend Azim's hand, and the two ran off to the sitting second where the librarian was greeting the children. I was friends with Azim's mother, Farrah, and we talked for a few minutes before I went upstairs to check out a book.

As I browsed the sections from my notes on the digital card catalogue, my phone buzzed just loud enough for me to hear that someone texted me. I fished the phone out of my purse and I saw that Ben had texted me about lunch. We had sat on the couch, rigidly I might add, and watched the movie, and then went to bed. There was no sex, no make-up conversation, no nothing. Lily woke us up and he got her dressed for the day while I took a shower and then made breakfast. He left for work with a forced kiss good-bye for me and a big hug for Lily.

Speaking of which, Lily had been downstairs for a half an hour. It was almost nine-thirty, now, and I needed to drop her off at pre-school. I could meet him for a meal at noon, definitely.

_I'd love to meet you. I'm sorry about last night._ I texted him. I didn't want to break up with him, but if he was going to keep on insisting we move in together, I wasn't sure I could trust him not to hurt me like Pi did._ But I stand by being able to take care of Lily and myself before moving in with you._

_You're a noble man of good intentions. And I love you. But I'm just not ready._

_We can talk at lunch._

I checked out my new books and went downstairs to help Lily with her project and to return hers for new ones. I went downstairs to see all the kids running around and playing a game of some kind. Lily was missing. I wonder if she had wandered off into the stacks. I did a quick tour of the shelves, but I didn't see her red hair. I checked the bathrooms to see if she had gone to potty on her own, calling her name. "Lily?" I asked. No response. I checked the stalls, and nobody responded; they were empty.

I ran out to the librarian.

"What happened to Lily?" I asked. "Is she upstairs? Did she go looking for me?"

"She went to the restroom on her own, she's not in there?" she asked.

I shook my head, feeling panic. "Can you have her paged? I think she's lost!" The panicked feeling in my stomach of grinding and drilling came up. My daughter was missing? I tried to calm myself down; I lost her once before in Target, and found her in the toy section. I had almost lost my mind with worry; one moment she was there, the next she was gone. I was worried as hell right now, tears finding their way down my cheeks.

"Will Lily Castle come to the check-out desk please?" the librarian said into the ancient intercom system. Nothing. I took to running through the library stacks to see if I could find her red head. Could she have gone outside? She knew not to go outside without an adult.

The security guard grabbed my arm. "Miss, calm down," he said. "We're going to find her, alright? What does she look like?"

"Red hair, about three foot-four, she's about thirty-two pounds, she's really pale and has blue eyes. She was wearing a Monster High t-shirt and a pink skirt with skulls and tights and had a Hello Kitty backpack on," I said, my hands shaking. She had probably picked it out, it was her favorite outfit, and made Ben dress her in it. "I have to call my father, just a moment!"

I got out my phone and it took me three tries to call Dad. "Dad! Daddy? Lily's missing!" I spluttered into the phone when he answered. "Where's Kate?"

"Wait a moment, where are you?"

"The Metropolitan Library, I left her downstairs for the children's hour, she went to the potty, and now she's missing! We can't find her anywhere! They've paged her and-"

"Try to calm down, we're on our way!" The line went dead.

"Dad?" I asked. I managed to open Ben's number and I called him.

"Jesus Christ, Allie, what is it?" He was irritated, but it didn't register with me.

"She's missing. Lily's missing!"

"What?"

"She was at the Children's Hour downstairs, I went to check out some books of my own, and now she's missing! She went to the restroom and she didn't return!"

"I'll be there in a minute, calm down! We're not going to find her if you freak out."

Before I knew it, a cop who knew my parents had come in and they had called an ambulance for me, I was having such an extreme panic attack. I sobbed when Dad and Kate arrived, followed by Esposito and Ryan. Kate took me to the bathroom immediately to pee. I could hardly breathe. "This library is monitored by camera, we'll review the footage and we'll get a lead," she told me, wiping my face down with a wet paper towel. I could see the panic in her face, too. "I'm not going to rest until we find her, alright?

Hysterical gasping was escaping my mouth, and I couldn't stop, I couldn't even speak. The idea of what could be happening to my daughter made my legs so weak, they collapsed underneath me, and Kate barely caught me in time.

"Allie?" Ben burst into the bathroom. He grabbed me from Kate's grasp and took me out to a fake plastic couch to lay me down.

"They took her! Someone took her!" I gasped. "She's missing!"

"She's having a panic attack," Ben said. "Alexis, listen to me, we're going to find her. I need you to calm down. We've got to have clear heads, alright?" He took my hand and I squeezed it as hard as I could. My Lily was gone, someone had her.


	8. Chapter 8

_Disclaimer- I still don't own Castle, Andrew Marlowe does, and I don't want him to sue me for playing in his sandbox. I'm just having fun, I make no moneys._

_Okay, here comes the real meat of the story, I hope I don't lose my readers. I think I'll have to write the rest of this before I post it because of continuity._

* * *

This had happened to me; I had been transported out of the country unconscious for reasons completely unknown to me four years ago. I woke up with my friend Sarah in a black box and we picked the lock. I had never taught Lily how to pick locks yet, like Dad had for me. They had locked me in a cage; Sarah hadn't been the one they wanted. It was me. I had no idea why they wanted with me.

My father had been the one who found me. It was all a blur in my memory; I just remember him telling me to duck and then, we were running. I had never run that far in my life before, but we ran all the way to the US Embassy, where a Consular Officer locked us inside and questioned me before a doctor examined me and I was taken to a hospital for more examination, and then taken to the airport by military escort.

"I want my father," I whispered under the veil of Xanax they gave me. "Where's my father?"

"I'm here, honey," he said.

"Did they find anything on the video footage?"

"They did. A woman was on camera taking Lily out of the building. Lily didn't look distressed or scared, they're wondering if they drugged her somehow."

"Who?" I begged.

"We don't know. They took off with her in an unmarked blue van. We're trying to track it right now."

"Where's Ben? Dad, was she kidnapped by the same people that kidnapped me?"

Dad didn't say anything.

"Where's Ben?" I repeated.

"In the waiting room."

"I want him here," I said. "And Kate? Where is she?"

"I'll go get them. The feds want to talk to you, too."

Kate and Ben were brought in, and Ben immediately picked me up into his arms. "We're going to find her," he whispered into my ear. "I know people."

"I know people, too," Dad said, sounding irritated. "They won't be able to hide her."

Kate was flipping through her text messages. "They found the blue van in Queens, but it was empty. The good news is, there was nothing left behind, like blood or vomit, or urine, or… anything else. So we're assuming she's still safe."

"Was it Pi that took her?" I whispered, my thinking blurred.

"We found Pi already," Kate said.

"Where is he?"

"He's back in New Jersey," she said. "About a year ago, Pi got arrested in Poland for drug trafficking and went to a Polish jail for ten months before being released and deported back to the US."

"What?" I asked, letting go of Ben.

"I hate to tell you this, Alexis, but Pi's alibied out. He's been in the drunk tank in Hoboken for the last twenty-four hours."

"How did I lose track of him like that?" I wondered. "It's not him."

"It's not him directly, but we still haven't ruled it out. We need to discharge Alexis and get her to the Precinct where the feds are setting up."

They discharged me in record time and Kate drove me to the Precinct with a new prescription for Xanax. As we drove through Times Square, I saw Lily's picture on the Jumbotron from our last trip to the Hamptons: LILLIAN EUDORA CASTLE, AGE 3 AMBER ALERT scrolled across the screen.

In the Precinct, the feds were setting up. "What do we have so far?" I asked. I moaned, the drilling sensation intensifying in my stomach.

"Not much. We're trying to identify the car that they changed her over to. We have no idea which direction they're headed in."

Ben walked into the bull pen and the fed I was talking to dropped his pen, staring at him like he saw a ghost.

"Ben?" I asked, standing up. "They lost her!"

"I know, baby," he said, slipping his arms around me. "We're going to find her."

"What do we do?" I begged the fed.

"They're doing a search at every airport in the United States. We're working on getting every airport in landing distance outside the US to search for her, too."

"Mostly in Canada?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Do they want anything?"

"There have been no terms set. Nobody's taken responsibility, which is odd."

I shook my head. "I don't have anything. My father does, but I don't."

Ben squeezed me.

"Hey, Ben?" Esposito asked. "Bro, I need to ask you a few questions."

"You can ask me right here."

"No, I really can't."

"I'll be right back, Allie," he said, kissing my forehead.

Kate took me by the shoulders and sat me down at her desk. I couldn't help but watch New York 1, which was on TV over the breakroom the feds had taken over. Lily's picture was on the screen, as was her information, and the hotline for any sightings. The idea seemed horrific, but unreal. I felt like I was in a tunnel. Why wasn't the whole world trying to get her back in my arms? Why wasn't everybody looking for her? She was my whole world.

I looked over to see Esposito talking to Kate in low voices, glancing over at Ben, who Ben coming out of the interrogation room, and he headed straight towards me.

"Has anything come through?" I asked, standing up.

"Not yet," he said. "Alexis, listen to me, we can find her."

"Seven billion people can't be tracked by a handful of people."

"I know the right people."

"Ben…"

"I can't tell you, but we'll get her back. I made a promise. She will be home and safe and sound in your arms soon."

"Ben?" Kate called. "Come here."

The feds started asking me more questions, and I gave them the same answers; I didn't know. There was no reason for anyone to take my daughter that I knew of.

They left me alone and I went back to Kate's desk. One of the phones on her desk chimed, and I recognized it at Ben's. I picked it up and checked it; it was from someone named Papa Jack and the phone number had been blocked. I tried to open it, but it asked for a code. I had never seen this.

"Ben?" I asked, standing up.

Lainey appeared from out of nowhere in her scrubs, and apprehended me. "Alexis, put the phone down, you need another Xanax, okay?"

"No, I don't!" I cried. She pushed me into the chair and got my Xanax vial out. She shoved a half a pill in my mouth. I just barely got it under my tongue when she shoved a water bottle to my lips. I swallowed, but didn't swallow the pill.

"Everything's going to be fine," she said, although I could hear the panic in her voice as well. "Just let it take effect."

I leaned back in the chair, trying to push the bitter pill out from under my tongue without her seeing me.

"We will find her, we promise," Lainey said, although I knew they didn't have any leads.

"Lainey!" Kate cried, coming out of an interrogation room.

Lainey left me in the chair, again and Kate whispered to her. I spat the tiny bitter pill out into the waste basket and checked Ben's text messages. There was nothing from Papa Jack. Had I imagined the message?

I stood up and looked around for Ben, who came out of the breakroom with two coffees. He met my eyes, and rushed over to hand me one. It tasted fresh, like a latte. My hands were still trembling.

"No news yet," Ben said.

"Who's Papa Jack?" I asked.

"What?"

"I asked who Papa Jack is."

Ben's expression became unreadable and he just stared at me for a long time. "I can't tell you."

"I'm getting a little tired of nobody telling me what's going on and trying to drug me! I just want to do something to find her!"

"I can't tell you."

I felt like I had been slapped; I had no idea who Ben really was. This reeked of a second life. He hadn't told me everything. "You lied to me," I said. "You're behind it, aren't you?"

"No, Alexis. I never lied to you and I'm not behind the kidnapping. I told you my background in the military is classified, and it's coming back to haunt me right now. I need you to trust me right now."

"Name one reason."

"Because I know who took Lily."

* * *

Ben and I escaped the bullpen and I raced after him to the subway.

"Who took her?" I asked. "Where are they going and what do they want?"

"You'd never believe me if I told you," he said.

"I would," I said. "I'm willing to believe anything if you can get my daughter back."

"Come on, we're going to my apartment in Williamsburg."

We took the D line to 2 and then I chased after Ben into Williamsburg. His legs were so much longer than mine and he was practically running. I could hardly keep pace with him.

The tiny hole-in-the-wall closet of an apartment had a filled laundry basket. He climbed onto the bed and tapped the wall with the side his fist. I gasped when it came off to reveal an expansive amassing of a gun rack.

"Ben?" I asked.

He started getting guns out and then a manila envelope. I recognized a Sig Sauer, which he loaded with bullets, and then he took out a microchip and fed it into his phone.

"I need your phone." I handed my phone to him and he tossed it on the bed. "We've got some place to go. I hope you know how to shoot a gun, Allie."

"I do," I said. It had blown up with calls from Dad and Kate, now that I was missing from the police station.

He removed a bullet proof vest and held it up to see if it would fit me and then tossed it into a duffle bag, along with two other smaller guns, probably 9mm each.

I realized I didn't know anything at all about Ben. Everytime something new was revealed, I realized I knew less and less.

"Where are we going?"

Ben dialed something and put the phone to his head. "Hey, Papa Jack. Any news?... Okay… Alright. Thanks, man." He hung up.

"What's going on?" I demanded.

"We're heading to Connecticut, a hot spot for them. And I know who took Lily. Some Chechnyan Rebels. The drug ring is amassing money, money equals power."

"I smoke a little weed, but I don't do drugs, what do they want with me?" I asked as we went downstairs.

"They don't want anything with you," he said. "They kidnapped you five years ago, and that was a lot harder than they thought because you have some skills. But you had a daughter, and she's much smaller and much easier to contain."

"Are they hurting her?"

"Not likely. They want to keep her safe until they can get what they want."

"What do they want?" He packed the back of his restored Indian motorcycle and tossed me the spare helmet.

"To hurt somebody who can take them down. That's all I'm going to tell you."


	9. Chapter 9

_Disclaimer- I still don't own Castle, Andrew Marlowe does, and I don't want him to sue me for playing in his sandbox. _

* * *

We ended up in Connecticut, in a small town called New Brook Haven. I realized that Ben had no idea where to go in this tiny town. I looked for New York license plates, hoping that I'd see Lily inside the car. We parked in the town square and Ben got some bread rolls for me to eat, since I hadn't eaten anything since this morning. It was late afternoon.

"I keep looking for something out of the ordinary," I said. "But I don't think it's coming. They're probably doing an exceptional job of blending in."

"They either blend in or stick out. Hide in plain sight."

"Do you think we should start showing her picture?"

He shook his head. "Just keep watch."

The town was so little and cute, but it didn't quite register with me to enjoy it. The sun started to set.

"Do you think you made a mistake?" I asked Ben. "This was a wild goose chase-"

"Shh!" he hissed, holding up a hand. "Listen."

I stopped and took the sounds in; there was a low rumble in the background, cars, people talking.

"That's it," he said. "They're flying a helicopter in."

"Do they have an airport out here?"

"No, that's the reason why they target this city. Come on, let's get going."

I put the helmet back on got on behind him on the bike. He revved it to life and we took off in search of where the helicopter was landing. My heart leapt into my throat; I'd find Lily and if Ben was right, she was safe and unharmed. He drove around, watching the sky, and took off his helmet at one point. I looked up and saw a helicopter flying incredibly low overhead. Ben turned the throttle and the little bike we were on accelerated.

The helicopter was flying low to avoid radar, and it landed. Ben took the motorcycle off road and turned off the engine.

"This is it," he said, getting off. I couldn't hear the helicopter anymore. "We run the rest of the way. I packed a bullet proof vest for you, best you put it on." He zipped open the sack. "Let me deal with them, alright? I can shoot a gun and I know combat maneuvers."

"I can shoot a gun, too," I argued.

"That helicopter was armed," he warned, pulling out the vest and putting it on me. He got his own out and packed the loaded gun into the waistband of his pants. He then pulled out a smaller loaded gun. "Don't shoot at the 'copter, especially if Lily's in it. A crash could kill her."

"Duh."

He rolled his eyes and started running towards the barn, and I struggled to keep up with him. He looked downright sexy, if I had any reason to want to have sex at all right now. I saw a treeline and a clearing and a car rolled up, the headlights of a car rolled up the drive. People got out, and I didn't see a Lily-sized figure at all.

There was conversation in a language I didn't recognize. I held onto Ben, trying to look into the car. The helicopter blades began to rotate.

"What are they doing?" I whispered.

Ben held a hand up to quiet me. The helicopter was almost ready to take off. Where was Lily? Were these even the right people? They started loading into the helicopter. The car was pulled up to the helicopter, and I saw the woman in the backseat get out with a large bundle in her arms.

"Lily!" I screamed.

In the car's headlights, I saw Lily's head, flopping backwards, she was asleep, her red hair still in braids.

"Lily!" I shrieked, running towards them. The woman's eyes locked with mine, and she climbed into the helicopter and shut the door. My heart rate sped up. My legs pumped like pistons, and I was so happy I had taken up running after Lily was born. I reached the helicopter as the blades intensified in speed, and I slammed the side of my fist against the glass and a small spiderweb appeared in it. The woman looked at me and smirked, shaking her head. I realized a string of profanities were coming out of my mouth. I was grabbed from behind, and out of tunnel vision and blinding rage, I took a swing at whoever it was.

_I will kick the shit out of you, you mother-fucking assholes you'll die and I'll scratch your goddamn eyeballs out-_

A man took a hold of me and restrained me with one arm, dragging me away. He was fucking beefy, and I could hardly hold my own against him. Why hadn't I gone to women's self-defense? I was grossly unprepared for my daughter's kidnapping, but I wasn't giving up for anything.

He suddenly went slack and fell to the ground. Another man was going towards me, too, and he suddenly tripped and fell on his face. By now, the helicopter was off the ground. I struggled to get up, but the moment I reached the helicopter, the bars were out of my reach, no matter how high I jumped.

Someone grabbed me from behind, and threw me to the ground and then laid down on top of me.

"Are you fucking insane?" Ben shouted in my ear over the roar of the engine and blades. He didn't let me up until the helicopter was out of sight.

"Why didn't we do something?" I sobbed. "She was right there!"

"We couldn't take them out. We didn't have enough bullets on us for the number of people. Fat lot of good a silencer would do before they found us. And you, running out there?"

I sobbed loudly, like I had done the night I told Dad I was pregnant, but with more rage to it. We sat there in the headlights among the two dead bodies Ben had just taken out. "That's my baby! She's in there! They took her! Where are they going with her?"

"We'll get her back."

I heard police sirens, nearby. "Allie, we've got to go."

"Go where?" I whispered.

He picked me up off the ground and slung me over his shoulder. He started running through the woods back to the motorcycle, I could hardly see a thing. He slung me over the motorcycle and then got on behind me. I was practically sitting in his lap and he turned over the throttle. I hardly saw the road for a few more minutes.

"I wish you hadn't run ahead like that. I think we could have gotten into the helicopter if you had just let me shoot down the men outside. You've got to listen to me, Allie," he yelled into my ear.

"What do we do?"

"The helicopter went in a northwestern direction. I think they're heading to Canada, they're probably going to use faked documents and take her out of UN jurisdiction."

"Where are we going?"

"To the closest military base to hitch a ride. And to find an old friend."

* * *

Ben and I arrived at a military base near in Fairfield. He flashed his ID at the guards and they let us in without question. By now, my hand was starting to throb. I had probably broken it, pounding on that helicopter door like I did.

He knew the route to a small cabin in the back, where he took me in. "Listen to me, Alexis. This man, I can't ever tell you who he is. I don't even know who he really is. But I was under his command for those missing six years of my life in the Marines. I only get to refer to him as Papa Jack."

He picked up the duffle bag and knocked on the door.

"Enter!"

He opened the door and I saw a man sitting on a couch, polishing a gun. His hair was grey, he had a beard, and was about six feet tall, medium build.

"Papa Jack?" Ben asked.

"Little Lion Man." He stood up and examined me. He studied me for a really long time. I felt a little uneasy at this. "Alexis."

"Yes," I said. "I'm Alexis."

He nodded, slowly. "You're the little girl's mother?"

"Yes. Her name is Lily."

"Yes," he nodded. "Lily Castle. A beautiful name. And a beautiful child."

"You've seen her?"

"Your father calls his Instagram 'The Lily Channel.' I've seen her face. She looks like you."

"It's the red hair. What do you know about her kidnapping?"

"Gregor Volkoff was a Chechnyan I took down about ten years back. A drug lord in Russia that made about a billion dollars in the drug and sex trade traffic alone in Asia, got busted and jailed in Chechnya and that's where he created a larger organization. I killed his wife in Paris, and stopped a major drug ring that was transporting into America. He was pissed."

"You were the man who helped my dad when I was kidnapped?"

"One of them, yes."

"I was one of the other ones," Ben said. "You don't remember, but I was one of the Marines that escorted you and your father from the Embassy to the hospital to the air port." I stared at him, surprised.

"All this time... you never told me?" I asked.

Ben shook his head. "I tried to forget about you, but... You popped back up in my life last year when Lily came trick-or-treating in my cubicle."

"But you're... one of them."

"Not anymore, he's out," Papa Jack said. "These are the same people."

"The man who kidnapped me was killed," I said. "I saw him killed as we ran out of that house in Paris."

"We got him, but not his brother. I've been after his brother Ivan for four years now."

I shivered.

"I got too close," Ben said. "I got burned."

"Burned?"

"They started to suspect me. I got sloppy because I couldn't forget you. Because I fell in love."

"You see, Alexis, intel agents can't fall in love. They can't have identities, and they can't have ties," Papa Jack said. "Alexis, they took your baby because Ben loves her and they wanted to get back at us."

"Why did they take me five years ago?"

"You were never told, were you?"

"I was. Are you my grandfather?"

He chuckled. "I'm nobody, sweetheart. Now, let's get going; there's a bomber taking off across the Atlantic, landing in Frankfurt, we can hitch a ride if we hurry."

"I don't have my passport on me."

"We don't, either, but we can make it work," Papa Jack said.


	10. Chapter 10

_Disclaimer- I still don't own Castle, Andrew Marlowe does, and I don't want him to sue me for playing in his sandbox. I'm just having fun, I make no moneys._

_Okay, here comes the real meat of the story, I hope I don't lose my readers. For those of you who have stuck by: thank you!_

* * *

The inside of the bomber was nothing like a commercial airline. There were a few seats, but nobody really used them. Instead, there were some air mattresses on the floor to sleep on. The roar of the engines was a lot louder, too, and there were no windows. Papa Jack handed me a water bottle and a pill.

"It's a benadryl," he said. "It'll help you sleep through the flight and combat the jet lag."

I took the pill and laid down on the air mattress with a scratchy army blanket. Ben laid down beside me on it.

"You said to got burned five years ago," I said, "because you fell in love."

"It's true," he whispered into my ear, stroking my hair. "We were escorting you and your father to the airport. I had no idea who the two of you were, we were just given orders to transport you and to not ask questions. But I remembered your face. I saw you and… your father wasn't letting you go and I…"

"You what?"

"You just struck me. And the way he was holding you. You were so loved. I knew you had just been kidnapped and that had to be terrifying, but the expression on your face… you knew you were safe."

I rolled over, the air mattress squeaking, too look at him.

"I realized I wanted to be a father that loved his own kids that much, too. I thought you were so beautiful, too. Your red hair kind of looks a little like my mother's, which I know is kind of creepy, but… I had just lost her right before graduation-"

"Your mother's dead?"

He nodded.

He had no parents. No wonder he had thrown himself into the Marines. "You never told me. I thought you talked to a woman named Candi back in Nashville that's your mom."

He shook his head. "I've got a stepfather who shows a little concern for me, and he remarried. I talk to them once or so a year, Candi's his wife and she has some motherly affection for me, but we're not really close. She's got her own kids. I think that's why they wanted me for intel. No ties. You know, I thought I was okay without anybody."

"Nobody is, Ben."

"I know that all too well. It's so empty out in the field. It's lonely. And I realized how alone I was all that time. At that time, we were focusing on the Volkoffs. I had infiltrated them, they thought I was some Russian orphan kid named Eloyshka Talonakonnova. Pi was working for them undercover… Goddamn that kid. Fucking around with Volkoff's grandkids, and getting involved to mooch drugs off them. Dumbass. You don't take freebies from the Devil, he always comes back to call in a favor."

"I thought he hung the moon. For obvious reasons," I muttered.

"The Volkoffs marked him."

"They did?" I asked, remembering that blacklight barcode on his back shoulder I had convinced myself was just a drug-induced hallucination.

He nodded.

"What did it look like? Like a barcode?" I asked.

"You saw it, didn't you?" he asked.

"I did. In a blacklight."

"That's what the Volkoff grandkids did; they tattooed with blacklight ink and marked their runners. Invisible in daylight and the dark, but it was there if you knew what to look for. A lot of the drug rings are doing that these days. I remember when I started to get too hot, I was kidnapped by a US intel team and they stripped me naked and scanned my whole body with a blacklight to prove I hadn't taken up with the Volkoffs when I befriended Pi."

"You were friends with him?" I asked. "Did he ever mention me?"

He shook his head. "No. But he was a fool if I ever saw one. I knew him before he disappeared to Costa Rica, I think he was on order by the Volkoffs to start a route in the US during that time."

"That's why he wanted to stay in the states after Costa Rica, isn't it? He was drug running for the Volkoffs?"

He nodded. "We had intel that he was drug running to Poland and France for them, we almost caught him. Then, he disappeared, and intel found him in New York. He was dumb enough to not even change his name when he got an apartment- the one he had with you. I began to think Pi had cut ties to Volkoff, and then he came back to Copenhagen. I was given the intel to see if he was drug running again, and he was."

"What was he doing on January 30th of 2014?" I asked.

"The day before, he had done a domestic meth run for a few of Volkoff's US dealers from New York City to Pennsylvania."

"That was the day-"

"The day you were preparing to get an abortion, I remember what you told me, I'm pretty good with sequence of events."

I nodded. "He wasn't selling his things, was he?"

"Yes, he was. He was intending on running, but I guess he changed his mind, he only made about thirty bucks off his personal belongings. He took a few hundred bucks for the transport across statelines, according to the report, and ran. Do you even remember how much money he had that day?"

I shook my head, thinking of the wad of cash that he had thrown at me that day. "I didn't touch it."

"He left New York after that. I was trying to find out why he left so suddenly, I thought he almost got caught by the local PD. So I did some research his friends in New York, and you were going to a lot of doctors."

"You could see that?" I asked, aghast.

"Of course. Patriot Act; I could see that your medical insurance was paying out to a lot of doctors, a tell-tale sign of organ damage from drug abuse. I was trying to see if you were part of the Volkoff's ring, those kinds of things. Then, it came out that you were pregnant. Patriot Act protocol said to just leave you alone, it was highly unlikely you knew anything at all. It bothered me that this kid was so corrupt, he'd run out on his girlfriend when she was in trouble so I confronted Pi. He denied that the baby was his. I told him what a pussy he was for that. With that, I got too close; I shouldn't have said anything about it, Pi made me sick, I'll be honest. He had family in the making and he ran out on you because he was a dumb cunt. It was dumb of me to do that, it almost blew my cover. He pointed out to the Volkoffs that I knew too much about him, I was suspicious. That's how I got burned."

"What happens when you're burned?"

"I had no money, no contacts, no identity, nothing, and I was stuck in the middle of Copenhagen. All I wanted was to get back to the states after Papa Jack told me there was no way I was ever going to make a comeback into the intel. I took a job on a fishing boat back to the states, worked my way across the ocean, and managed to sneak back in illegally, hitching my way back down to Nashville. I started being Ben Haversham again, retired Marine, my birth identity. I had to relearn my southern accent that I had worked so hard to forget and I went back to writing between serving at a restaurant in Nashville. I applied to all the MFA programs and I got in at NYU with a full ride if I taught English Comp 101. And then Lily came up to me on the 29th of October in that little bumblebee outfit and said, 'twick or tweat.' And that was that. My heart melted for her. All the pieces of the puzzle came together. I had heard there was a redhead in the office that Richard Castle's daughter, I remembered you when you came up to me, and I realized you were the girl from Paris and had been the one who had Pi's baby. I didn't know you were one in the same until that day."

"You never knew it was me? You never saw my blog before the office?"

He shook his head. "Sorry. I fell in love with the girl in the airport escort in Paris. I didn't know what your name was then. And I don't read your dad's books. At least not until he was introduced to me and I recognized who he was. But I couldn't scrub you out of my brain. I'd dream about you in that transport and wish I knew you. I wished I had spoken to you."

"Is that why you kept on trying to get me to go out with you and your friends?"

"No. I was afraid you were still a target. If any of the Volkoff's agents saw you with me, it would show them that you were protected. That's why I kept on asking you out until you agreed to go to trivia with me- and that's why I walked you home every time."

"So you don't love me?" I asked, offended. "The real me? Not just what I look like?"

"No, I do. I couldn't help falling more in love with you and Lily, and that's too dangerous for a special intelligence agent, to have ties. My mission is to protect you, and Lily by effect. If I don't come home, but you and Lily get back to New York, mission accomplished. My life is forfeit for yours. I'd die for you."

* * *

I woke up about an hour before we were to land. I couldn't tell if it was daylight, yet, due to the lack of windows. My sinuses and throat were dry. I needed some water. Maybe some food, too; I was starving.

"Hey, honey," Ben said groggily from behind me. "Are you getting up?"

"Yeah," I whispered. "Can't sleep anymore."

I shifted.

"Do you know what time is it?"

He glanced at his watch. "I think it's almost ten, Frankfurt time."

"Not bad," I muttered. "I'm going to get something to drink."

"Alright, I'm going back to sleep."

I pressed a kiss to his lips. I got up, despite the squeaking, and went to the little minifridge for a bottle of water out. I sneaked up to the cockpit, and could see the sun rising in the east.

"Morning," the pilot said to me.

"Is there anywhere to brush my teeth?"

"No, but I've got a stick of gum," the female copilot offered. She got it out of her utility vest. It would do for now. "We're landing in about a half hour. As far as we know, you were never on this flight."

"Thanks for taking us," I said. "It means everything to me to get my daughter back."

"Good luck."

I went back to check on Ben. He was still asleep on the air mattress. I woke him up. "Hi," I said. "We're landing soon."

"Okay," he muttered, rolling back over to go back to sleep. "Five more minutes."

I decided I'd let him sleep. I went to sit down with Papa Jack.

"The police are going to give up in another twenty-four hours," he said. "Kidnappings and disappearing children happen all the time, mostly with low-income and the drug-addicted population. Most of them either go into selling drugs or the sex trade domestically. We can't mount the manpower or the money to retrieve them every time. Most of the time, the parents are too poor or too addicted to put much effort into it."

The drilling sensation in my stomach returned. I felt sick for all the children who were taken, and worse for the parents who weren't capable of retrieving them

"I know your father and stepmother won't give up," he said. "But international kidnappings… Ivan Volkoff wants to hurt somebody."

"Who?"

"Ben. Ben helped bring his brother down when you were kidnapped. Chechnyan rebels don't forgive easily, and they're picking off the different infiltrators on the list."

"Who are you?"

"If I told you, I'd be compromised."

"Do you know my grandfather?"

"I do."

"Will I ever meet him?'

"Not likely."

I finished my water.

"You hungry?" Papa Jack asked.

I nodded.

"We'll stop for a late breakfast when we land. Luckily the borders in Europe are mostly open. We shouldn't have any troubles driving around once we get a car."

"Where do you think they've taken her?"

"They had a base in Vienna. It'll be a day's drive, but I think that's where they headed out."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm never always sure. I'm just going on intel."

"I take it intel's not always precise?"

"Not at all. How's your hand?" Papa Jack asked.

I looked down at it. "It's good."

"No, let me see it."

I extended my hand to him. He poked around on it and made me flinch.

"Yeah," he said. "You broke it."

"I didn't mean to. I think I can get by until we find Lily."

"Let me set it. This might hurt for a moment, okay?"

I nodded.

He began to knead my hand, which left like a shot of pain up my arm. I grimaced and ground my teeth. Then, he popped my hand quickly and I cried out.

"There we go. I'm going to go get a bandage and some Aleve."

I nodded. He came back with the proper items and wrapped my hand up carefully with a toilet paper inner tube to support it underneath.

"I'm going to go wake up Ben again."

"Little Lion Man's gone soft."

"Why do you call him that?"

Papa Jack chuckled. "He was still baby-faced and had long hair like a girl's when he entered the military. It looked like a lion's mane. That was his nickname when he went through boot camp, and I started calling him that when he got assigned to intel through the military."

"So you knew about him before he enlisted?"

He nodded. "I had my eye on him. That kid.. hot damn, he was smart. He had perfect TCAP scores growing up, he had a perfect SAT and ACT, a full ride, but he stayed close to his mother because she had had cancer. Pity what happened to his parents."

"What happened to his father?"

"His father was in MI-5. You do the math. The reasons behind his mother's death were suspicious; a hit-and-run in the Bellvue area of Nashville. The Brits wanted Ben, but he enlisted. With a psychological profile like his, he was the perfect agent for intel from the start. He was practically bred for intel work, I had my eye on him."

I nodded, yawning.

"He was like a son to me. That's why I took it so hard when he got burned, but he did it to himself. That was his one weakness on the military psych tests; he's very protective of the ones he loves and very loyal as well. We thought he was just fine because he didn't have any family left to speak of… I'm just glad it's you he's taken up with."

"You say this like you know me."

"Maybe I do."

"I take it you've never been in love."

"You best not ask any questions about me, Scarlet. You best get to waking Little Lion Man up."


	11. Chapter 11

_Disclaimer- I still don't own Castle, Andrew Marlowe does, and I don't want him to sue me for playing in his sandbox. _

* * *

Jack arrived with a car lent out to us from the military; non-descript, european, navy-blue sedan. I took the backseat and laid out while Ben took the front. We stopped for breakfast on the road, but didn't stay long. We arrived in Vienna by mid-afternoon. We got some dinner and a hotel, where I unwrapped my hand, and examined it. It was looking pretty ugly at this point; it was turning purple as I iced it down. There was no way I'd write with this hand until it healed. I took a shower, wishing there were clean clothes to change back into, but for now, I'd settle for what I had. When I came out, I saw that a fresh pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and a hoodie had been laid out for me and a toothbrush. I dressed and brushed my teeth, which was hard to with with only one hand. As I spat into the sink, Ben opened the door to the room.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, kissing me quickly.

"Better. Any news?"

"Not really. Their home base here in Vienna hasn't been active," he admitted. "Jack and I staked it out. How's your hand?"

I held it up. "It's hard to get dressed with only your non-dominant hand," I admitted.

"Let me wrap that for you." He got out a fresh bandage and we rewrapped it so it was supported.

"Ben, did you really mean what you said on the bomber?"

"Yes," he said, kissing my hand. "Of course. Now listen. As far as we know, nobody's come in or out of there all afternoon and there are no cameras. There's a chance they transported her there."

I nodded, feeling that grinding sensation in my stomach again.

"I know your expressions by now, Allie," he said, pinning the bandage. He kissed me on the lips. "We're going to go find her." He picked up a gun and tucked it into the waistband of his pants and headed towards the door.

"Wait, where are you going?" I asked.

"I'm going back to the warehouse. You're staying here."

"No, I'm not!"

"Yes, you are! There's a chance there's armed men out there and you don't know what to do."

"Yes, I do!" I cried.

"These aren't your father's books, Alexis," he warned. "He doesn't know as much as he thinks he does. He almost got himself killed twice when you were kidnapped."

I crossed my arms.

"Come here," he said, softly and apologetically, opening his arms. "I'm sorry."

"Alright, so you're letting me go with you?" I wrapped my arms around him. "I love you, Ben."

There was a click and I felt something heavy on my injured hand's wrist. I looked down to see that he had handcuffed me to the bedside table. "Ben!" I cried.

"Not to be kinky, but you are not going."

"You're going to leave me here, handcuffed? You know I know how to pick locks, don't you?"

He grinned. "I seriously doubt you can pick it before I'm long gone. But get on it, we may have to run. Don't use the phone, we'll text you. Bye, Allie."

He tossed down the phone and walked out the door.

"Damnit," I muttered to myself. I dismantled the cheap ink pen on the nightstand and began picking the handcuff lock. It took me a few minutes, and I knew I'd never catch up or find Ben or Jack, now. I sat down on the bed and played with the phone.

I was certain that Dad had to have lost his mind by now, with me missing along with Lily. I played with the phone, wishing I could text Dad, and turned on the television only to see Austrian television. A moment later, there was a text from Ben.

_No outcome. We're on our way back for you._

"Shit," I muttered.

A half hour later, the door opened and Jack and Ben came into the room; Jack was holding a tablet.

"No luck," Jack said. "We got in and it was empty. Except for this. You might want to see it."

I pressed the start button and there was a video file on the desktop. I tapped on it and a file came up.

I saw Lily, sitting sleepy-eyed front of a sheet. I gasped "_Lily, hold this_," a lady with a Russian accent sang softly. Lily pouted and pushed it away, rubbing the sleep out of her eye.

"She's been drugged," Jack said.

"No!" I cried.

"It's a good thing, she won't remember the kidnapping."

By now, Lily was holding a German newspaper: I could see it was today's. My heart stopped in my throat. "_Tell Mommy you're safe?_"

"_Mmm_," Lily said, groaning and nodding.

"She's not safe until she's back in my arms!" I cried, indignantly.

The screen went blank and for a moment, I thought the video was over; then I saw words across the screen.

_Tell the operatives to meet at this address in Moscow in thirty-two hours:_

The address flashed across the screen in cyrillic. "Ben!" I cried.

"I know what it says." He grabbed my hand. "I'll remember."

_Lillian will be safe unless you do not meet us there._

_All three of you are expected._

_Or no deal._

"We have to leave for Moscow now! Can we drive?" I asked.

"We'll hop a train," Jack said. "Come on."

We checked out and went to the train station. We found a train that went east, and we'd have to change at several locations. I sat in the train compartment with that nervous, nauseated drilling sensation in my stomach. I felt like vomiting several times that night. All I could think of was if they were hurting my Lily.

At one point, I saw her sitting in the compartment next to me, her little Hello Kitty backpack still on. I shrieked, and jumped. It shook everyone in the compartment awake; she wasn't there.

"I think you nodded off," Jack said.

"I think I did."

"Do you need something? Coffee?"

I shook my head.

"It's best that you get some sleep," Ben said. "You haven't been trained in sleep-deprivation techniques. It could cost you your life if you got sloppy."

"How many days have you stayed awake?" I asked.

"My personal record is four. It took a lot of discipline. I'm nodding off here and there right now. I'm not in the same shape I was while working intel."

"I'm surprised I've lived this long," Jack said. "You two rest for now."

I tried to fall back asleep thinking about Lily. I found that when I focused on something, I rarely dreamt about it. I finally drifted off to sleep.

I woke up around dawn when the train stopped in some city, I hadn't kept track. Jack had bought some food for us right away, some breakfast of a brochen with butter. I really hadn't realized how hungry I was getting. My own hunger kept on getting overshadowed by my worry about Lily. The sun rose outside my window, and all I could see was how beautiful it was. At the same time, I could think of was if they were feeding Lily, if she was eating healthy or was she too drowsy from being drugged? What kind of drugs were they using on her? Were they feeding her sodas, which I wouldn't let her have? Were they molesting her, God forbid? All I could do was worry that I'd never get her back and made me sick.

"She'll be okay," Ben whispered in my ear, as if reading my mind. Lily's well-being had to be obvious on my face. He held me close in the compartment, and I leaned into him. I didn't want to put so much trust and responsibility into his hands, but I had to at this moment.

* * *

In Moscow, I had never seen such quiet and drabness. It felt like a heavy cloud hung over the city once we exited the train station. I was afraid of becoming completely illiterate here, but luckily, there was some English on the signs. We checked into a hotel to have a private place to plan.

"Alexis, I don't want you going," Ben said.

"I'm going," I said.

"There's no way," Jack said. "They asked for all three of us. They want a trade."

"I thought you said they wanted to take somebody down. I don't know anybody who cares about Lily or me that could take them…" I realized what I was saying. "Ben?"

"I told you, if you and Lily get home safely and I never get back, my mission's completed." His expression was stoic.

"You're not going to do that," Jack said. "We'll arrange an equal trade."

"What?" I asked.

Jack shook his head. "We can't tell you. It's safer for you not to know. But we'll get her back. I've already alerted my contact at the Embassy; Peter Halcomb and his people will come for you, and we should have Lily delivered to the Embassy by then. He'll get you home."

"What happens to you?" I asked Ben.

He shrugged. "Mission accomplished. But I'll try to escape with you if I can."

I nodded.

"I'm not promising you anything, though."

A stark realization for us.

"Alexis, I want you to wear your bullet-proof vest until someone arrives for you," Jack said.

"How do I know who to go with?" I asked.

"You'll know," he said.

We put on our bullet-proof vests on and Ben strapped it on me so tight I could hardly move.

"I just want you to know that as long as you're alright, I'm alright," he whispered.

"What if you die?"

"Then I die a happy man." He slipped a plaid flannel work shirt over my shoulders. "Just make sure Lily knows how much I love her. Do you understand how much I love you?"

I nodded, fighting back tears. I felt selfish and unworthy of his love at this moment. If I had the promise of a future with him, I'd spend the rest of my life making him happy. I had been a fool to believe that all men were just like Pi, except Dad. They weren't; Ben had only his heart and no other proof to offer his love, but I hadn't taken his word. How foolish of me.


	12. Chapter 12

_Disclaimer- I still don't own Castle, Andrew Marlowe does, and I don't want him to sue me for playing in his sandbox._

* * *

Although they were not taking me along, I wanted to see them to the car. As we were getting to the car in the parking garage, I saw a shadow of a figure walking towards us.

"Run!" Jack yelled. "Ben, take her!"

Ben turned and yanked me backwards in the other direction, but it was too late; we were surrounded by Russian mobsters.

A voice rang out in Russian, and I jumped. It was Ben that responded in Russian. I counted six menacing figures come forth out of the darkness.

"Eloyshka," one of the men said, coming forward into the light, staring straight at Ben. "You bring little Lily's matushka along?"

"Yes."

He grinned, but it made me sick; what was he grinning over? There was nothing nice in that smile.

"And you bring big man?" he laughed and I squeezed Ben's hand harder. "You boys cost me twenty million euros. You can tell I'm not happy. That's a lot of money."

"I know."

"Eloyshka, Pi's dead body says hello."

I gasped. He grinned at me. "Pi didn't care, did he?" he asked, stroking my chin with a long, calloused finger. "You spread your legs like whore for him, fuck him, and he runs off the moment you have baby. He had… how do you say… accident. In police station in New York." Ben squeezed my good hand so hard…The man's face turned cold and he backhanded me across the face. Ben grabbed and pulled me away, but there was nowhere to run. "You cost me my brother. My nephews. And my son. Now, I take from you, big man."

"You want me dead, I'm gone," Jack said.

"What I want," the man I presumed to be Ivan said, "is my twenty million back. What I want is my son. And my brother. You know nothing of family. You take from me. And now, I take from you."

A burlap bag was suddenly slipped over my head and a pair of beefy arms enveloped me. I screamed and was being dragged away, and I could hear the scuffle. I realized I was being tossed into a car trunk. I clawed and screamed, but nothing was happening. I heard the car rumble to life beneath me.

I had to do something. I knew there was a release hatch somewhere in car trunks. Then, I realized that this was a Russian car, the safety standards were much lower than American or British or Western Europe's standards.

With my good hand, I tried to feel along the inside of the trunk. Nothing felt familiar. My hand didn't quite fit in anywhere. I couldn't even peel back the felt upholstry. In less time than I expected, I felt the car park. I was surprised I didn't asphyxiate in the trunk, but they opened it up, the same men. I was dragged out, my good arm pinned behind me and they put the bag back on my head.

I found myself thrown into a dampy, dirty room with a squishy, messy floor. The door behind me slammed closed before I could tear the bag off my head. I was alone in this room, but I could hear a television turn on outside. There were no windows, but there were metal bars on the door at about eye's level. I stood on my toes and saw a man watching some bad Russian TV show. They had promised me Lily. Why had we been so stupid? I bet she wasn't even here. I had to think. I stomped on the floor, and I guessed that there was a floor beneath us, like a basement. I still had my bulletproof vest on. I remembered Sarah's advice while kidnapped; make the captors identify me as human and feel sympathy for me. I didn't speak Russian, but I needed to get a chance to communicate with them. I waved at the man. "Hey!" I cried. He looked up. "Water?" I asked. I tried to make a drinking motion with my hand. He only chuckled and turned back to his show, ignoring me.

I sat back down on the dirty floor and tried to think. What other options did I have? I had no hairpins or paper clips, they had thought ahead.

I wasn't sure, but they had me in there for hours. I was dirty and hungry and thirsty and tired, but nobody was paying attention to me. Was I just going to be left in here to rot? I wanted my daughter safe, no matter what it cost me.

Finally, the door opened and a stoic-looking man with a goatee entered my cell. He said something in Russian I didn't understand, and took a step towards me. I backed up, scared of what he was going to do, and I found myself in a corner. A lecherous smile crossed his face and he grabbed me by my injured arm and yanked me to my feet. I yelped in pain and he twisted my arm behind me, pain hitting me so hard, I almost lost control of my bladder. In my moment of weakness, he took my other hand behind my back and pulled me around to push me out the door. I screamed in pain as he guided me down a hallway into a larger room in the warehouse, saying something to me in Russian I couldn't understand.

In the room, I saw Ben laying naked under a light. He was moaning softly, and I saw early, faint traces of bruises along his back and only his ass cheeks and worst of all, on on his kidneys. "Ben!" I cried as the man let me go. I rushed over to him, and he lifted his head at the sound of my voice. "Ben! What did they do to you?"

He had a black eye forming over his cheekbone and he carefully sat up, crying out as he sat up.

"Honey," I whispered, trying to take him into my arms.

"I love you, you know that, right?" he whispered.

One of the men watching threw him a pair of pants.

"Eloyshka gave me much entertainment," said one of the men. "Now, you give it to me." He walked up to me and ran a finger across my face. "You are… very beautiful American woman." I cringed at his touch. "You have baby, but not married. American women are..." he said a word in Russian that I was certain meant _slutty_, "like that."

Ben threw him a look and said something in biting Russian. He got pimp-slapped in the face for it and I was shoved backwards onto my arm, screaming in pain.

"Come on, little red," he said.

"You're not taking your clothes off," Ben said to me. "She can't even untie her vest. Her hand's broken."

"We cut clothes off, then?" He laughed. "We see nothing but American women naked. American women like that, don't they?"

I felt sick. But I'd endure it for Lily. If they wanted to fuck me and rape me, I'd take it, if only it saved her.

"It's alright, Ben," I whispered, standing up. "I'll do it." I stepped into the light. They four men in the room asides from Ben stared at me, leering, making sexual gestures. Despite my nausea and the sensation of violation, I carefully unbuttoned the workshirt as best as I could with my shaking hand. There were a few laughs at a comment in Russian, and I felt like I was going to lose control of my bladder if I didn't do this quickly. I very slowly took the workshirt off and tossed it to the ground. "Help?" I asked, pointing at the ties to the vest.

"Very good," the man said, leering at me. I swallowed back fear and vomit. Right as he went to cut the ties with his knife, Ben sprang up. It surprised me, but he brought his fist down on the back of his neck, and whipped around as the other three men came at him to attack. Ben moved with what I thought was super-human speed, and I hardly caught what he was doing. His fist connected to a face, he broke an arm, and then side-swiped someone in the neck. All of them were dead within a matter of seconds wearing nothing but the trousers they had thrown him.

"How did you do that?" I asked. He grabbed a pair of shoes off one of them, and slipped them on his feet before taking my work shirt.

"Don't ask. I have the feeling they were dumb enough to bring Lily here," he said. "I thought I heard her voice."

"They had no intention of returning her to us," I whispered.

"They have every intention of killing her in front of Jack. Just like killing the both of us." He took my good hand and we started out the door. He found his way down the hall. "Don't let go of my hand. She's down this way."

"What about Jack?" I whispered.

"We'll try, honey."

We rounded a corner, hoping to find a discarded weapon or someone not on guard that we could overpower, somehow, but I could see that Ben was breaking down a little bit, wearing down. He was slightly hunched over as we searched the hall. We ran upstairs to look through those rooms, and I heard something I didn't expect; a cartoon voice in Russian. I looked at Ben, and he nodded. The sound was coming from behind a closed door. He reached over and tried to turn the knob, but it squeaked slightly. He shook his head. "We have to burst in there and see what we've got," he whispered. He pressed his ear to the door. "Don't be afraid to jam your thumb into somebody's eyeball."

I nodded.

He looked around for something that could be used as a weapon, and found, of all things, an iron in a box of junk. That would have to do for now.

I felt my heart stop when he kicked in the door.

There was a cartoon on a small-screen TV and a woman sitting on a couch, holding… Lily.

I saw Ben sling the iron out by the cord and it hit the woman directly in the head, quickly knocking her out before she could scream. It was the same woman who had held Lily on the helicopter.

"You _bitch_," I snarled. I found picked up Lily from her arms, and she felt like a sack of potatoes. She was dirty, and smelled a little bit, and her hair was greasy, but my baby was breathing and warm and safe. I squeezed her to me. She groaned slightly, and her eyes fluttered open. "Lily?" I whispered. Her eyes opened; they were a bit dilated, but they focused on my face.

"Mama…" she breathed.

I squeezed her to me, tears gathering in my eyes. A flood of relief struck me. "Oh, baby," I whispered.

"We've got a ways to go," Ben said. "Don't relax."

"We have to save Jack."

"I will save him, you go. Run until you find a taxi and ask for the Embassy. Don't worry about us."

I realized I had a terrible choice in front of me: Ben and Jack or Lily.

"Listen to me," he said, drawing me close. "Live your life in a way that would make me proud. Tell Lily that when she's old enough to know."

"Ben-"

He silenced me with a kiss. I kissed him back with everything I had; was it possible I'd never kiss him again? Lily was waking up and wriggled out of my arms. "I love you," he said. "Lily?"

"Hmm?" she responded, stumbling, picking up her Hello Kitty backpack.

"Lily, come here. I love you very much," Ben said. He picked her up and hugged her and kissed her and then gave her back to me. "Alexis, go."

I started out the door, but one of the gangsters, a bigger one, was blocking the doorway. He said something in Russian and grinned at us. Ben stood in front of us, his arms out.

"Stand back," Ben said. He had the iron in his hands, still, and he used the cord to fling the iron at his head, and knocked the man out before he could even raise his gun. "And we've got a gun."

He grabbed the gun off the gangster and we ran down the hall. I had no idea where the exit was or even what floor we were on.

At the end of the hall, a pair of Chechnyans appeared, and started towards us. "Shit!" I whispered.

"Here," Ben said, pulling me and Lily towards a door. It was a staircase. Downstairs didn't look too bright-I was afraid of going into the darkness. Ben ushered me up the stairs, and I found myself on the roof. Jack was kneeling and working on something.

"Jack!" I screamed.

"Other there!" he shouted, pointing at the next building over.

"Go!" Ben shouted. "Jump!"

I ran towards the edge of the building, and saw the roof was further away than I thought I could jump. I took a deep breath, and heard the gun shots behind me. I was dead either way. I made the choice; I jumped with Lily in my arms.

I just barely came over the edge, and I somehow turned to the side so I didn't land atop Lily. I landed on my injured hand side, and heard a sickening snap. I didn't feel anything for a moment over the adrenaline pumping through my veins; but Lily started crying. She had been hurt in my arms. My head hit the rooftop and I saw stars.

The gunshots that erupted were enough to tell me that we weren't safe.

Ben suddenly tumbled across the roof into my view.

"Allie!" he shouted. He grabbed me and dragged us to the otherside of the rooftop door. He pressed his body over mine, and then I heard it: a deafening explosion. I glanced over his shoulder; it was a dry explosion, it had been dynamite or something like it, no a liquid fuel source. Ben was yelling something in my ear. I couldn't hear anything, it all sounded like I had cotton in my ears. I finally made it out: "We've got to keep moving!" He dragged me to my feet, and I couldn't physically hold Lily anymore the whole right side of my body screamed in paralyzing pain. Ben kicked in the weak door and picked Lily up. I don't really remember tearing down the stairs, but we emerged on the ground floor, and I saw it; the building, which was four floors tall, was on fire and in danger of collapsing.


	13. Chapter 13

_Disclaimer- I still don't own Castle, Andrew Marlowe does, and I don't want him to sue me for playing in his sandbox._

* * *

Ben dragged us to a car, and threw a cinder block through the window. "Get in!" he shouted. "Get in the car!" I was shaking, too weak to move, but he shoved Lily inside, and then carried me around to the otherside and shoved me in. I began to black out and started shivering. "Ben?" I croaked. He was hot-wiring the car and it came to life. He stepped on the gas, and I saw in the rearview mirror as the building began to collapse on itself. I still couldn't hear very well.

I went into shock in the car; my head spun and I couldn't remember anything. I laced my hand into Lily's hair and felt her moving and breathing. She was crying at this point. Her tears were better than not knowing if she would survive or not. I kept on saying her name as the ringing in my ears started. I heard some sirens as I went in and out of consciousness.

I woke up to someone carrying me out of the car and the intense pain it was bringing. I was screaming from the pain. "My baby!" I wheezed. "My baby! Lily!"

"I got her!" Ben yelled. "I'm here!"

"Miss Castle, we're going to take you to a hospital," a man was saying. He was wearing a tie. He wasn't a EMT. "Miss Castle, can you follow my finger?" He waved a finger in front of my face. "You're at the Consulate's office, you're safe, you and your daughter are safe!"

A woman in a sweater and a pencil skirt was taking Lily out of Ben's arms, and a few other men were grabbing him and dragging him away.

"Lily!"

"We're keeping her safe!"

"Lily! Give me my baby!" I screamed.

Ben was being taken away. I wheezed his name before I got a shot in the arm. I felt the world turn slow-motion and my thoughts became sluggish.

A man came up to me and started evaluating me, and I was sent to the hospital. The Russian hospital looked like the inside of a mental institution from the movies. Inside, all I could think of was Lily. Where was she? They took me through and the man who had been evaluating me was translating in Russian for the doctor. They put me through an X-ray and when I got out, he was waiting.

"Miss Castle, you've got two breaks in your right arm, a break in your hand, and three broken ribs on your right side," he said. "Can you understand me? You hit your head pretty hard"

"Where's Lily?"

"She's at the Embassy, she's safe," he said. "She's with Rachel Hamby, one of the other Consulate Officers, the Embassy doctor says she doesn't have any traumatic injuries. I'm Peter Halcomb, I was contacted by intel about you. Lily's safe."

"What about Ben?"

"We debriefed him and he's on his way. It's alright, you can rest now. We'll get you back to the US soon enough."

"What about Jack?"

"There was no one named Jack."

* * *

I was doped up on some kind of painkiller and they put a cast on my arm. I was taken back to the Embassy, and put onto a cot with a nurse attending me, telling me to go to sleep. I asked for Lily over and over until Ben came in, holding her. i reached my good arm out for her, and she was sobbing. He laid her down on my left side, and I wrapped an arm around her.

"Ben?" I asked, after kissing Lily's head several times. Someone had given her a bath and she smelled like Dove soap and shampoo. My little Lily Bean was safe. "Ben, where's Jack?"

"Jack didn't make it," he said, his eyes filling with tears. "He set off the explosion, he killed most of the Volkoff ring, but had to sacrifice himself, too. It's over. I promise you it's over. They found too many dead bodies in the rubble, they're identifying them right now."

I realized Lily was biting my upper arm, but I didn't care. She was with me. She was in my arms. She was safe.

* * *

We were in the Embassy for the next two days before the doctors cleared me to fly home. Dad had been contacted the moment we arrived at the Embassy, and he had chartered a private jet to fly us home. The Embassy took care of our passports and documents, and a nurse was sent home with me, pumping me full of painkillers. I couldn't hold Lily, but she was now out from under the chloroform they had been using on her. She didn't really remember anything when asked. I hoped she hadn't been scarred by the events. Jack kept on coming to mind for me. He had sacrificed himself to save us. Apparently, he got out out his cell and set up the explosives to destroy the building; they had been stock-piling them at this location for some reason. As far as Ben could tell, he had planned on breaking us out, and blowing up the roof once we were out. It was some kind of abandoned labor district in Moscow, a few homeless people saw our escape. News of it would never reach mainstream America: America didn't care about the rest of the world.

Jack had had too much to do with the downfalls of the Volkoffs; they had been killed off, bodies identified. The Chechnyan Rebel drug ring was done for. Jack was a hero, but no one would ever know or care.

I asked briefly about Pi, and what I found out was that he had his face blown off in his room in a tenement hotel in Jersey. I guess that was his path in life.

When I finally got on the phone with Dad, he broke down in tears. "I almost lost my mind," he said. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost both you and Lily! How could you scare me like that?" He ranted and raved, the worst chewing out I had ever had in my entire life from him, but I was too high on pain meds to care. I hardly heard anything he said.

The plane didn't land in Newark or at JFK. It landed in a suburban area.

"Where are we?" I asked Ben.

"We went to East Hampton," he said. "They told me that when I landed back in the United States, I was burned again. I had to completely go back to being Ben Haversham, English teacher and grad student. No more Eloyshka. No more Little Lion Man. I'm all yours, babe."

"So I'm stuck with you for life?"

"Yeah," he said, a grin creeping across his face. "You kinda are."

* * *

The nurse helped me up and Ben carried Lily out of the little jet. I had to be careful on my way down. Dad, Grams, and Kate were waiting on us. Dad held me for a long time, despite the sharp pain from my broken ribs. "I'm sorry I yelled at you," he whispered in my ear.

"If I wasn't a mom, I'd deserve it. Nothing could possibly keep me from finding my baby. Thank you for the apology. Why did we land here?" I asked.

"We needed to avoid the press," he explained. "My apartment, your apartment, completely surrounded. Give them a day or two to calm down, and we'll release a statement and then we can start home."

Grams had finally let got of Lily, and handed her over to Kate.

"Oh, kid," she said, tears running down her face. "Oh, sweetheart." Grams tried to hold me, but cried for so long.

After Kate cried and held me, we got into a chartered SUV and were drive to Dad's Hampton House. I was taken up to my room and put to bed.

I slept so hard. The next morning, as the sun was coming up, I felt someone climb into my bed with me. I opened my eyes and saw Ben in bed. He kissed my forehead. Then, my eyelids, and then my cheek, then, my lips. "Where's Lily?" I asked. My worry about where she was would never leave me again. I kept on asking about her out of anxiety. I'd always be a protective mommy after this, always obsessed with her safety.

"She's in her bed, asleep. Kate's been taking care of her."

"I'm so glad."

"She needs the experience; she passed out in the bullpen and they took her to the hospital the day we left. She's pregnant."

"What?" I asked, and gasped in pain from trying to sit up.

"You need another pain pill, don't you?"

"Please."

He sat up and got the pill for me. He handed me a pill and fed me the glass of water. I swallowed it and gagged slightly.

"Unexpected. She's holding her breath, they think she's got a good chance at this. Apparently, she's got three placentas, according to her ultrasound."

"Are you joking?"

"Not all."

I leaned into him and breathed him in. God, he smelled so good.

"So I'm going to have three younger siblings! I... this is amazing. It was so heart-breaking when she lost the last pregnancy."

"You guys disappearing was pretty tough on her."

"An Pi's dead?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry, babe."

"I'll tell Lily when the time's right. I don't know it'll make that much of a difference to her. He had no interest in her anyway. Is the Chechnyan drug ring in America done for?"

"Yes. No worries about that."

I breathed him in again. He smelled so good.

"I love you," I whispered. "I love you so much. I'm so sorry I put up the walls. You're my everything, now."

"You know what today is, right?"

"No."

"This is the anniversary of the first time I saw you in the office."

"Only you could remember things like that."

He chuckled. "I remember everything." He held me. I could see the sparse outline of his chesthair against his pectoral muscle, and a small scar from something, shaped like an S under his nipple. "I talked to your father last night after Lily went to bed."

"What about?"

"We smoked a couple of cigars and talked about you," he said. "And if he'd let me be Lily's father. I asked him for permission to ask you to marry me."

"Why did you ask him?" I asked, offended. "And not me?"

"Because in the South, it's tradition to ask permission from the parents to join the family," he said. "On your prerogative." He kissed my forehead.

"Are you asking me to marry you?"

"Yes, I am," he said. "We'll find a way to afford a ring when we get back to New York. I want a family and wife and a future." He kissed my shoulder. "I don't want to be alone. I want you. I have for five years, and that's never changed."

I had begun to believe that there was no man in the world as good as my daddy. I felt tears coming to my eyes. "You want me and all my baggage?"

"I do," he said, rubbing my back and he pulled me on top of me. "You're my love. My home. Anywhere we are is home to me. And I'm fine if it's just you, me, and Lily."

"I'm sorry I didn't believe you when you said you'd stick around," I whispered, tears coming to my eyes. "I love you, Ben. I love you fully and completely. I do want to marry you. Yes. Let's get married." I kissed him; long and slow. I remembered that kiss in the derelict warehouse in Moscow; the franticness of knowing he might not make it out alive or even be able to see me and Lily again. I'd be able to kiss him however languidly I wanted, for as long as I wanted, whenever I wanted. I was so thankful that he was alive and in my arms. I had no reservations about my answer for him. I was going to be his other half, and Lily was going to be our daughter. A forever family.

_Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye, I will love you forever and ever._

* * *

_A/N- not done yet! Epilogue on the way! Thanks for sticking with me!_


	14. Epilogue: 3 Months Later

_Disclaimer- I still don't own Castle, Andrew Marlowe does, and I don't want him to sue me for playing in his sandbox. Thank you to everybody who's stuck with me through this story! I love y'all!_

* * *

_3 Months later_

Kate was languidly sitting on the couch at the Hamptons House, her feet up. She was showing, much more than I had at five months. "I'm taking on naming the triplets, but your father wants to take on the author names they'll have," Kate told me, rubbing her expanding stomach.

She looked about like I had by my sixth month at this point. Kate's babies were due in April, if she made it that far. Her OB GYN had forced her to take off from work already, and she was going almost weekly to a high-risk doctor. There was a high likelihood that she'd go into labor a bit early, and the idea of having three kids at once was scaring the hell out of her. Her body, at her age, went into super-ovulation without any warning. The D&C she had had made her uterus more fertile, and apparently, when you got older, your body started ovulating more eggs in an attempt to reproduce before menopause. Multiples were more common in older mothers. I just enjoyed the idea of watching her and Dad run ragged after how they had told me _we need our sleep_ in the first few weeks after Lily was born. Lily didn't remember anything from being kidnapped. I was so thankful for that. She was looking forward to being a flower girl, she practiced every night before bed with her own fake flowers Grams gave her.

"You know, I was so cute during the second trimester," I admitted. "I wish I had enjoyed it more instead of hiding it because I was so ashamed of being pregnant alone."

"I have the feeling I'm going to pass the cute phase really quickly," she admitted. We had talked about the super-gross stuff to expect during pregnancy and laughed at it. It was strange being the daughter, giving my mother pregnancy advice, but we weren't a normal family. "Your father told me last night that my girth was sexy. I told him he was full of crap."

"I think you're perfectly cute right now!" I responded.

Lily came up to her with a wrapping bow and stuck it to her belly. "Here, Nanny."

"Thank you, Lil," she said. "That's very nice of you."

"I know," Lily said, grinning. "Now you look pwetty!"

"Are you saying Nanny was ugly?" I asked.

"No! She's pwetty!" Lily said. "But she said she didn't look pwetty. She does!"

"Are the babies going to be your Christmas present this year?" Kate asked.

"No!" Lily cried. "I can't open them, yet, can I?"

I laughed. "Not yet, you really can't. Otherwise, we'd have sent a message to Santa that you didn't need presents!"

Lily gasped. "No! I want my pwesents!"

My present this year from Ben was my engagement ring. He moved into our little apartment, surprisingly to Dad's blessings. After graduation in June, we were planning on a small beachside wedding here in the Hamptons, and I was planning on wearing Kate's wedding dress. The ring sparkled on my left ring finger, even in the winter sunlight, a distraction to the laproscopic scars on my right arm and hand where I had had a pin surgically installed here in a US hospital after I had gotten back from Moscow. I had held my breath that Ben didn't have kidney damage from the beating. He had healed up after the ordeal in Moscow luckily, without surgery or dialysis. I still wished we could ask what happened to Jack, but there was no news.

I was going to start my internship as a LCSW at a low-cost clinic in Queens next summer. I finally relented to Gina as well, and I was going to publish my blog into a memoir of my unexpected pregnancy, which is why we had money for an engagement ring; the book advance.

The front door burst open. "The men have returned," Dad bellowed. He had a Christmas tree on his shoulder and Ben was carrying the other end of it. I think he and Ben preferred to do 'guy things' together. This was new territory for them, and I think they enjoyed this father-son relationship. "Move everything!"

"You gave me the heavy end, Rick," Ben grumbled.

Kate and I laughed when they argued and almost dropped the tree before getting it into the bucket stand and then Ben started messing with the string of lights.

"Lily, we're kind of relying on you to make the tree look extra-pretty," Kate said. "I can't do it all."

"I know," Lily said. "Can we watch Rudolph while we decowate the twee?"

"I can get it," Dad said, grabbing the remote.

Ben was getting frustrated with the burnt out lights. I could hear him grumbling under his breath, he was about to lose his shit over the lights.

"Why don't I go get some new lights from the store?" Dad suggested.

"Good idea," I said. "Ben? Let's take a break, I'll get you a beer."

"Yes," Ben said, taking the other end of the couch. I got a beer for him from the bar and one for myself. "I already messed with the one in the apartment. I cannot take those goddamn little lights-"

"I think they looked great," I said, trying to calm him down. "And remember, little pitchers have big ears."

"Daddy, what does that mean?" Lily asked, climbing into his lap.

"What does what mean?" Ben asked.

"_Widdle pitchors have big eaws_?"

"That means you're a little recording device when you hear us say bad things. And we don't want you repeating them," I said.

"Alexis, would you mind making me a decaff coffee?" Kate asked. "Movement is getting too hard."

"How about a decaff soy latte?" I asked as Dad came downstairs.

"Alright, anybody need anything else from the store?" he asked.

"Some Tums," Kate complained, pressing her fist to her sternum, making a face. At that moment, the doorbell rang.

"I got it!" Ben said, jumping up.

"Alright, anything else? Alexis? Lily?"

"Ice cream!" Lily cried.

"There's ice cream in the freezer," Dad said.

"No, the McDonald's kind!"

"Dad! Have you taken my child to McDonald's?" I asked accusingly.

"Richard?" Kate asked, suspiciously.

"Those chicken nuggets!" Dad cried, throwing his hands up in the air. "You give her the vegan kind, but Lily loves those! And the toy in the Happy Meal-"

"I don't feed my kid that," I said.

"But it's so cheap! And it makes her happy! I can get writing done while she plays in the ball crawl!"

"Hey, Rick," Ben said, coming into the living room, holding a box. "I thought you and Alexis might want to see this."

"You just got that?" I asked, standing up.

"Yeah, special delivery," he said. "Um… can we go to the kitchen for this?"

I helped Kate up and we left Lily in the living room.

Ben got a knife out of the kitchen drawer, and opened the box. "I pulled in some of my last favors for this," he said, opening the box. He pulled out a silver, non-descript box and a manila envelope that was stuffed full of something. "This are the personal effects intel was holding for Papa Jack."

"What's that?" I asked. "It looks like an urn."

"It is," he said. "It's his remains. Jackson Hunt's. I thought it was appropriate that his family had this."

My jaw dropped.

"I knew you couldn't talk about it, Rick," Ben said. "We couldn't either, but the classification is expiring. These are his ashes."

"His family?" I repeated. It couldn't be true.

"Yes," Ben said. "Even though he was like a father to me, you are his blood relations, not me."

The words sank in. "He lied to me," I whispered. "He told me he wasn't my grandfather."

"If you had known who he was, you'd have tried harder to save his life and gotten yourself killed," Ben said. "He couldn't risk that. He told me who you were to him before we got snatched in Moscow."

"But-"

"What was his real name?" Dad asked. "I always wondered."

"Jackson Andrew Hunt," Ben said. He handed a card to Dad- it was a social security card with his name on it. My last name should have been Hunt, not Rogers, had Dad not changed it. "That's his social security card, Jackson Hunt was his real name." He pulled out a few more items to spread across the counter; one of which was a worn-out coaster with the name_ Martha_ and a phone number written on the back. "Actually, those are for Mother Martha. She was his only love, I think she should have this. He spoke fondly of her, but I never knew her name until he told me in Moscow. And these two things are for you, Alexis." He handed me the huge folder. I opened it, and the first thing I found was a book. Casino Royale. I opened the cover, and there was a playing card; the Queen of Hearts. I flipped the front page open and began to read to myself.

_Alexis,_

_You've turned out better than I ever thought you would. I'm so proud of you and Lily. I'm sorry I was never there, but I've checked up on you from time to time. Although I never met you, I love you and Lily. I may not be there, but I'll still check up on the two of you._

_Always,_

_Jack_

I couldn't read it aloud with the lump in my throat. I handed it to Dad and opened the smaller envelope inside: more documents. Dad began to read it as I opened the folder. It was legal documents of some sort, I didn't know, it was all in German as I read with blurred vision.

"That's the ownership paperwork," Ben said. "Papa Jack put it in your name."

"My name? To what?" I asked, barely audible.

"The different Swiss bank accounts holding the twenty million he diverted off Gregor Volkoff before killing him," Ben said, a grin creeping across his face. "You present it to the Swiss banks and they release it to your possession. Unless you want to avoid taxes, you know?"

"Where did he get this money?" I asked. "This can't just be laundered profits from street drug sales."

"It's not. It was from several big American prescription drug and health care corporations, trying to fund the expansion of the Russian crystal meth supply the Volkoffs were trafficking. So they'd have an illness to treat in private rehab clinics and to find prisoners for privately-funded prisons," Ben said. "The Volkoffs laundered it, so there's no way to hold them accountable."

"Sick," Kate muttered.

"Incredibly sick," Dad agreed. "I don't want to live on this planet anymore, if that was the intention of this money."

"That's what your grandfather brought down," Ben said. "This is his legacy. He wasn't just stopping international drug traffic, he was stopping some corrupt American corporations from manufacturing illness."

I looked at the documents. The idea of keeping twenty million in laundered money and living an easy and smooth life on it seemed nice, but I'd forever feel guilty about it. No, it bothered me too much. "I'll give it to charity," I said. "If it's in a Swiss Bank account, they'll never trace it back to me. I'll donate it anonymously."

"That's my girl," Dad said.

"I knew I was marrying you for a reason, Allie," he said, pulling me close to kiss me. "I knew you'd do the right thing."

* * *

After dinner and a long conversation about which charities to donate the money to, we gave Lily a bath and put her to bed. "We're in the home stretch," I told Lily after we read two books to her. "Tomorrow night, Santa's here and then, you can be as naughty as you want for Grandpa and Nanny."

"But just remember that the Easter Bunny will come in April," Ben said in a warning tone.

"I know, Daddy," she sighed. She had transitioned over to calling him that smoothly.

"Good night," I kissed her forehead. Ben kissed her, too, and then we turned out the lights.

We went downstairs for another beer, but Kate and Dad were missing. I realized that they were outside, sitting on a chaise lounge chair by the covered pool; they were watching the Aurora Borealis that had found it's way this far south. I took Ben upstairs to give them some privacy.

There was a chaise lounge chair on my balcony overlooking the empty pool and backyard, and I took Ben outside to watch the aurora dancing across the night sky. I sat between his legs and leaned back on him with a blanket over us for warmth.

"You think we could take some of the interest and buy our own apartment?" I joked. "One with a separate master bedroom that has a lock on the door?"

"No," he said. "We're not keeping a cent. Although I'd love to have sex in our own bed for a change, absolutely not."

"I know," I said. "We're not. That money will go to addicts all over the world and their rehab. We're getting our own place with our own money, and it'll be all ours from our own hard work." I turned around to plant a kiss on his lips. "That's going to be so hard in New York. Especially on our salaries?"

"We'll do it." He didn't say anything for a longtime. We watched the beauty of the aurora and Ben told me about how he first saw the Aurora in Sweden on one of his first intel missions and how awestruck he was at Mother Nature. "Did you know the mission's going to go public?" he finally asked. "I know a few senators in DC that want to disclose our mission to the public, Argo-style."

"Why would they do that?" I asked.

"Because a lot of heroes fell. And I feel that they should be recognized. Not stuffed into urns and put in storage to be forgotten about. Papa Jack's only one of them."

I nodded. "That's no way to rest for forever. How lonely. What about their families?"

"The intel life is a terrible, lonely life, I'll be honest. If this happens, it's going to burn me permanently and I'll never be reactivated. I'm going to ask if I can write the true crime story."

"You?" I asked, surprised. "Aren't you afraid of disclosing things that shouldn't be disclosed in intelligence?"

"Not really," he said, shrugging. "I know what to cut out and I'll change the appropriate names. And I'll say in my blurb biography that I live at home with my beautiful wife and children in New York City."

"Children?" I asked. "We've never talked about more."

"I think Lily needs a brother or sister. She's got three aunts and uncle competing for attention, we've got to level the playing field."

"I'll think about it," I lied, although I wanted nothing more than to have another baby, his baby, and name him after Jack.

"I think we need a happily ever after."

"We'll have it, Little Lion Man. We'll have it."

* * *

THE END


	15. Author's Notes

Author's Notes

* * *

_AKA, why I wrote what I did._

Why did I write Alexis getting pregnant? In the episode _The Good, The Bad, and the Baby_, Beckett said she might want to have a child with Rick, and Alexis said, "if you two had kids, and I had kids, they'd grow up together!" And, like I said in the disclaimer of the 1st Chapter of _Alexis, Unexpected_, I started doing my best Karen Walker going, _No, honey, no. Don't have a baby with Pi, are you kidding?_ I think Alexis just got the Black Snake Moan, and got together with a selfish jerk on her Costa Rica trip, but thinks he hung the moon. Ugh, I hate Pi. I want to see her with a boyfriend who'd attend to her every need before she even realized it and would love her enough to die for her. Pi doesn't do that. I get the feeling Alexis basically told Pi, _this is what we're going to do_ and he's such a pussy he didn't already have a plan of his own, so he went along with it because hey, cheap rent, weed, and free sex. I'm 100 per cent certain they're smoking up a LOT, too.

Why did I decide to write this fic and why did I do it so quickly? Hubs and I were watching the Castle Thanksgiving Marathon on TNT, and like I stated after seeing _the Good, the Bad, and the Baby_, she made that stupid comment at the end.

Why do I have a really bad habit abusing Alexis Castle? I assume you've read _the 10 Hospitalizations of Alexis Castle_. I guess I do it because she's a lot like me; she's trying to be the perfect girl, she's trying to live up to a lot of different people's expectations even though they're not always true to her heart deep down, she's really smart (although I wonder sometimes if she worries people will figure out that she works really hard to get her grades, not that she's naturally that intelligent), she over-extends herself, and I get a sense that on the show, she's trying to be extraordinary to get her mother's attention, which she misses, but will never admit it to Rick. I've been there, it's taken a lot of work to overcome my abandonment issues. I suspect Alexis has a few of her own, and that why she's one of my favorite supporting characters on the show. If I met Alexis Castle in real life, I'd take her by the shoulders, shake her a little, and tell her; _Look, even if you were the most outstanding person ever, it's not going to make everyone who's abandoned you start acting right. And that's not your fault they don't have their shit together, being perfect isn't going to make them better. _I have a lot of experience with this, with all the alcoholism and addiction in my family.

I have a lot of sympathy for her and her character because I identify with her. Also, I hear way too many people look at women who've had abortions and unmarried, unplanned pregnant women, and say, _They're such stupid girls, didn't they think enough to use birth control? They should have been abstinent in the first place! Having sex and turning her back on Jesus was her CHOICE. She doesn't deserve another one!_ I hate those people, because pregnancies happen. When it's your time to be pregnant, no amount of birth control is going to change that, and you don't know when it's going to be. It's this kind of patriarchal shaming that drives women to abortion. We're attacking abortion from the wrong angle. And I also feel that Alexis would have been scared of being seen as stupid because of this pervasive attitude in our culture. I just wish she'd realize she doesn't have to be all these things on the show, and just learn to be herself, even if she catches hate for it, the most important people in her life will still love her for her honesty. I also feel that she cares a lot about what other people think of her, and Castle's trying to wring that out of her, but doesn't quite know how because of the double-standard and all the rewarding he's gotten from his sexual antics that are known (multiple wives, dating multiple women in the gossip columns, mounting a police horse naked while completely drunk, etc. Alexis would never be celebrated for that kind of behavior).

Why did I reuse original characters I made up in previous fanfics? Cuz I'm lazy, that's why.

Why did I have it so that Alexis gave up her virginity to Pi? Because:

1. it was a lot simpler than her giving it to one of her past boyfriends on the show (which by all means, could have happened, but it's never been confirmed) and having to explore that backstory (which would have been too tedious, and I fear I would have lost readers)  
2. I don't think it's ever been explored or as obvious on the show until she moved in with Pi and  
3. In the season 2 closer, _A Deadly Game,_ she was going to the summer program at Princeton and Rick was obsessing about how it would be co-ed and she already found a boy she knew (whom she was blatantly flirting with right in front of her father).

It stands to reason that she could have given up her virginity to Carter as early as that summer between season 2 and 3 in the summer program. Instead, I took a simpler route, although I doubt Alexis graduated high school a virgin. She probably wouldn't tell her father if she gave it up, even though she and Castle have a very close, open relationship as father and daughter. So what if she did, anyway? I'm very much against slut-shaming. There's nothing wrong with enjoying sex. As of the date this was published, (November 26th, 2013-December 10th, 2013) she has never stated on the show that she has had sex before she met Pi. I'm not going to update the fic if she states she was doing it with Carter or Ashley later this season on the show. Sorry, Charlie.

Why did I have her getting an epidural when she gave birth? Simple; because I had one when I had my baby, although I was pretty stoned through most of it. I took the accounts of other of my fellow mommies that sometimes, you can feel things during labor while on on an epidural. I've never had a baby by c-section, although my friends have.

Why do I not like Pi? He's a mooch. And I really don't like him. I seriously don't think the breakup between Alexis and Pi is going to be a blip in the storyline on the show when it happens. He's way too much of a slacker to stay with Alexis for a long time, and I really think Alexis is going to wake up one day and go, _WTF was I thinking? _I think we all want to see Alexis with someone like Ben.

Why did I make Kate semi-barren in this fic? Because I wanted to, that's why. I have other mommy friends in their thirties who tried to conceive and were told, "if you wanted to have kids, you should have been trying ten years ago" (shut your face bitch, I wish I had punched those people for them). It took the hubs and me a few tries before we got mini-me, and I'm in my 30s. Also, Kate was super-fertile in 10 Hospitalizations of Alexis Castle. That was fun. Also, I hope they show all three of Kate's predicted pregnancies on the show (as was indicated earlier this season)._  
_

Why was Kate smoking cigarettes in this fic and admitted to prior pot use? Really guys? She talked about her wild phase on the show, do you think she didn't experiment? She probably did, between riding her motorcycle and posing naked in college art classes. So what? Nobody died. Nobody died when I went through my wild phase, either. Nobody died when Castle went through his (which he's still going through).

Why did I write the Castle family as lay-Catholics? Because I'm familiar with Catholicism, and it's been indicated on the show that Martha is of Irish descent, so it stands to reason she was raised Catholic. The Castle family doesn't apparently act Catholic, and they aren't religious, but they do celebrate Christmas.

Why did Paige and Diana get mad at Alexis for being pregnant? They both had prior pregnancies and their parents made them have abortions, that's why they were jealous. I meant to write it in, but didn't get the chance. That's the problem with writing a chapter and publishing it; you realize you should have added it in earlier and it's not possible to fit in at this point without breaking up the rhythm of the writing.

Why did Alexis choose Kate as her birthing partner? I get the feeling that in the show, Alexis and Kate will begin to depend on each other more, and with Meredith keeping such a distance from Rick and Alexis, she'd probably fall into that role. Especially after deciding to be Alexis's stepmother and her desire to have a baby of her own. She'd probably be fascinated by Alexis's pregnancy, initially. And Alexis felt the need to help Kate adjust to birth.

Why did I refer to him as Richard Edgar Allen Castle and not Richard Edgar Alexander Castle? My mistake. I didn't check Wikipedia, which states his name is Richard Edgar Alexander Castle. There's been some discontinuities on the show, which I don't mind, since they are really small (like Kate being so affectionate with little toddle Angela when was found season 1 and her sudden fear of babies this season) but I'm not quite a CastleWiki myself.

Why did I give Kate baby fever once she saw Lily? I had it myself at age 30, freaking out that I'd never have a child. Kate's probably older than 30 at this point, the biological clock just hits you when it hits you.


End file.
